Meet Tess!

When gorgeous Tess was born at 28 weeks, she weighed only a little more than a kilogram. She made her world premiere at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital via emergency caesarean because her mum, Tania, had HELLP syndrome, a variant of preeclampsia.

While it was a surreal time for Tania, who was critically ill and transferred to intensive care at Royal Melbourne Hospital, while Tess remained at the Royal Women’s Hospital. Her rock was her partner Matt.

“To this day I do not know how he kept it together,” Tania says. “He visited both his girls at our respective hospitals, did milk runs as I was expressing, liaised with specialists at both hospitals, and all this while working and caring for his son at home.

“Looking back I remember the faces and the extreme kindness of the nurses. Now time has passed I have forgotten their names, but their touch and words echo in my world today.

“Oh, and I remember watching Lisa Mitchell on Australian Idol. She was 16 at the time and the vision of what I hoped for my beloved Tess, who at this point I had not even held in my arms.”

Tess clearly has music in her sights, as you can see from her enjoyment of a night out at Carols by Candlelight.