Written & Photos by Sharni Stone
My name is Sharni and I’m 22 years old. My partner and I have been together for 5.5 years. We had been together for 4 years when we found out we were expecting our first child.
Before we found out we were having a baby we often spoke about starting a family. I found out I was pregnant in September 2020. We were absolutely over the moon, we couldn’t have been happier.
My pregnancy was great, I loved being pregnant. At 20 weeks, we found out that we were having a baby girl. We finally felt like we could start getting things in place for our baby girl. My pregnancy was still running smoothly until I reached 33+1 weeks when I had to go in for an emergency c-section because I had developed Preeclampsia & HELLP Syndrome.
We welcomed our baby girl, Laura Maree on April 9, 2021 weighing 2kg. She was small and a real little warrior. She just thrived from the day she was born with very little setbacks. She spent 4 weeks in Special Care. We live in Australia so our baby girl came home on my very first Mother’s Day, it was the best gift I’ve ever received. We were so excited to have our baby home. She came home weighing 2.2kg and ended up back in hospital for 3 days due to having some breathing issues but our little warrior fought even harder.
We were excited that our bubba was back home and healthy. She attended her community nurse appointments, my baby girl had doubled her weight since coming home from spending 4 weeks in Special Care, she weighed 4.3kg at her last appointment. She was absolutely thriving for a little preemie, that was her weight 5 days before she passed away.
On June 30, 2021, I fed my baby girl at 7am and then I put her into her bassinet and we went to back to sleep. I woke back up at 10am to feed my bubba and I had found that she had gained her angel wings.
It was the most heartbreaking day for me, my partner and our family. She was only going on 3 months old. Our bubba Laura made such an impact in our lives, more than she’ll ever know. She was our little warrior. She’ll always be our bubba, our greatest blessing. She’ll be forever loved, forever missed.