Introductions.

Hi, I'm Tiff!

I usually blog over here but Tammy asked me to write for 5MFSN.

Of course I said yes! How exciting!

I'm a mum and I used to work as a midwife and I love photography.

The rumour is that I have seven kids.

I guess that's true.

Two sets of twins,

a singleton and

two foster boys.

Yes, I know what a TV is.

Yes, life can be busy and challenging but it can also be fun and interesting.

I wouldn't really have it any other way.

There's much I can talk about living with seven children, so you need to get used to me hanging around here because I have some tales to tell! 

Two have immune deficiency, one is globally developmentally delayed with autistic tendencies. One is emotionally challenged and all of my children have asthma. The youngest two came along after our son, William died.

What you'll hear most about though is my struggles with our youngest daughter, Ivy.

Ivy has IgG deficiency and mounts little response of her own to infection or some of the vaccines she's had. What might be a cold for other kids, usually means a bad pneumonia or sepsis for the girl. It limits her in ways that most kids would take for granted. Swimming is out and going to a playcentre is bad news. Even an important rite of passage like going to preschool is a risk. As part of this Ivy also suffers from Pemphigus. This is an auto immune response. Basically, her body is attacking itself and causes terrible blisters. It kind of piggy backs on the whole immune suppression thing.

The good news is Ivy is now having an infusion of antibodies every twenty eight days to help boost her own system. It was a huge process to have it approved but we have just had the second dose of Intragam. We are all hoping for a great Summer because Ivy and I have lived at the hospital for the last twelve months. Ivy knows all the nurses by name and most of the doctors as well. David and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary over a hospital flourescent light dinner for two (plus one girl with pneumonia) in our favourite room on the ward just three weeks ago.

I think that just about sums our life up nicely at the moment!

It has had a huge impact on our family.

I guess I should also tell you we live in rural Australia so things are a bit different from the USA.

The services out here are interesting, to say the least and can be very frustrating.

So, thats us, in a nutshell. 

Tammy is letting me loose in here every Thursday. I hope you'll come and share in our lives!