Dear Aunt Lizzy

Your computer is here. I had to throw myself in front of it to keep my mom and dad from opening it. My dad almost lost a hand, as you can see from the video, but your computer is safe for the time being. I got your back.

Love,

Livie G

The many faces of Miss Olivia Grace

So on Sunday, we decided to host a little photo shoot to see if we could get a good picture for Olivia's birth announcement. The ones from her birth, such as the ones where she's being intubated or where she's hypothermic, are a little morbid and I don't like to look at them anymore. So we dressed her up in the cute little yellow sundress Ben and Ashley gave us, put some giant gerbera daisies around her, and started clicking.

This is the one we got for her announcement. I love this picture. This picture shows off what a sweet and amiable kid she is. She's generally a pretty happy and inquisitive little girl. She fusses for about five minutes before she falls asleep, just to let us know that she's not happy to be awake. And she gets mad if you let her go too long without food. But the rest of the time she's content to lay in your arms, on the floor, in her swing, in her bouncy chair, in her bed, or wherever, and just talk and watch the goings-on around her.

That's why I love these other pictures more than that picture. These pictures show the true, interactive, inquisitive and entertaining sides of my daughter. She cracks me up 24-7. Maybe it's not healthy for her self-esteem to laugh at everything she does, but I just can't help it when she sneezes and farts at the same time. Or when she burps and startles herself. Or when she laughs out loud in her sleep. Yesterday when she laughed in her sleep, Charles and I laughed out loud, and she thought that was funny and kept laughing. I stinking can't get enough of this baby.

Free at last!

Olivia's been home for a week and half today! I didn't post right away because things have been, as I'm sure you can imagine, slightly hectic. There's the usual new baby stuff: sleep schedules, feedings, burpings, diapers, tummy time, milestones, etc. Add to that the newness of her feeding tube, a brand new case of reflux, and a delightful case of MRSA, and you've got a recipe for sleep-deprived parents!

We went to the doctor about every day Olivia's first week home. We had her first "normal" doctor's appointment, where we learned that in some circles, Olivia's problems are considered easy. The occupational therapist and the family coordinator that were sent to our home from early intervention also seemed to think that she's doing ok. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves for impressing them all when the doctor called to tell us that Olivia's bandage dressing, which she had cultured two days previously "just in case" had come back positive for MRSA. One look at what webMD.com had to say about MRSA had me in almost in hysterics.

Luckily, Olivia's brand of MRSA seems to be isolated to her surgical site, and has not yet entered her bloodstream or spread to other parts of her body. She is on a ten day course of antibiotics to be completed on Tuesday, and we are now using gloves when we clean her wound site. Considering that Charles and I are both uninsured, we really can't afford another case of MRSA in the family. We are so grateful that our doctor had the foresight to randomly culture Olivia's dressing so we were able to catch this before it spread to her lungs or her bloodstream. She seems to be responding to her antibiotics, so we're praying that it just stays contained and that she keeps fighting it.

On a lighter note, Olivia's kicking butt on this feeding thing. She pretty much sleeps through the night, and we have yet to be able to wake her up to eat, so the tube comes in pretty handy for keeping her hydrated and nourished. But during the day she's wide awake and seems to be really enjoying eating these days. Today she nursed for a whole feed- something she's never done before. When we nursed in the hospital, we always weighed her before and after, and I was always shocked at how little she got into her system for how long she sucked. So when she fell asleep after nursing today, we went ahead and "topped off" with her tube; we were shocked when she woke up suddenly and spit up about as much as we had just put in her tube. Apparently she had eaten an entire feeding for the first time in her life, and she was completely full! I can't even tell you how happy that made us- I had only thought to try nursing today to see if she even remembered how to do it, since we haven't done it for weeks. She latched on like she'd been doing it for months, and didn't let go until she was full and asleep.

I'm beginning to think everything they told us in the hospital was a lie, and they just wanted to keep her there because she's so cute. Selfish jerks.

Since I know you're all here for the pictures, I'll stop rambling and get to the good stuff. Enjoy!

.

home cookin'

My mom's staying with us until Saturday, which means a delicious home cooked meal of my choice every night until then. My mom is the world's best cook. I'm admittedly second best, but I would never challenge my mom to a cook-off. She tends to crush her competition under the weight of chocolate chip cookies and other homemade delicacies.

It's been really fun to see my mom and my baby together. My mom reminds me so much of my own grandma when she's with them; I've caught myself impersonating my own mom to my daughter, too. I guess it's a good thing I like my mom and grandma so much, because it looks like I'm destined to turn into them. Albeit a little ruder. I tend to shock my mom and grandma with my antics and shenanigans.

Olivia's still working on the eating thing. We're going to reevaluate with her occupational therapist and her neonatologist on Monday, and decide whether she's ready to go home without a feeding tube, or if she needs to have a feeding tube surgically installed in her tummy. The thought of that breaks our hearts, but it would be temporary, and it would at least mean she could come home. I really think that if we could get her home and start teaching her about her family and about how parents are always there for you, she'd do better. Her nurses all love her to death, and we really really are grateful for them, but they still change out every twelve hours with the shift change, and I think consistency is going to prove beneficial for Olivia.

This kid has my heart in her tiny little palm. It hurts when she cries, and I can't help but laugh out loud when she smiles. I find myself doing everything in my power to get her to smile, and it's so worth the effort for her gummy little grin. turns out she loves bathtime. She just revels in the shampooing experience, with her eyes and mouth wide open, grinning every few minutes. My daughter is so stinking cool.

whipped

that's us. Whoopah. We'll do anything she wants.

Charles had kind of a frustrating Father's Day. We'd been hoping Olivia would be home by Father's Day, but no such luck. She was, however, breathing on her own, and beating her own heart and pumping her own blood and even eating from a bottle. She just doesn't get very far before she poops out and falls fast asleep. And when she's out, she's out for the count. There's nothing you can do to wake her up. We've tried. Her aunt Chris tried for two and a half hours straight the other day. To no avail. She's kind of stubborn, we're finding out.

They're saying she'll probably be there two or three more weeks, just regaining her stamina so she can eat enough to thrive. I'm kind of impatient, I'm finding out.

Charles walked in to the living room tonight to find me pumping milk while drinking a glass of milk. He thought it was ironic. I assure you, I was drinking cow's milk. With a straw, of course. But I'm glad he could see the humor of the situation. I think we'll make it.

Olivia's birth story

I know we totally owe you guys an update. Sorry to keep you hanging for so long, and you've all been very patient with us, so thank you!!

Now that the dust has settled a little, and things are looking so good, I'm finally feeling up to writing about this experience.

Friday morning, the 29th, at 5:3o I woke up to go to the bathroom. I got back to bed, and ten minutes later I woke feeling like I had just wet my pants, but I knew I had emptied my bladder just minutes before, so my heart skipped a beat, and I thought maybe my water just broke? So I stood up to go to the bathroom, and all of a sudden my pants and legs were completely drenched. Even though I was completely alone in the room, I was really embarrassed because it really looked like I'd wet my pants. Just for the record, I hadn't. I was in labor!

I yelled at Charles that my water had broken, and called my mom, who of course reminded me that I had an OB and should probably let her know. By the way, this post is a birth story as well as a post-birth story, so of course it'll be TMI for my dad and anyone like him. He knows this all already, but he's going to mortified that I'm putting it on the internet for all the world to see. So, I called my OB and told her that my water was broken, and it was definitely still coming! I told her also that it seemed to be kind of green, which I hadn't expected. She said it probably meant there was meconium in the fluid, which meant I needed to be checked out. I was a little disappointed, because I was planning on going all natural, and had counted on being able to labor at home for the most part. But I took my seat on the birthing ball and directed traffic while Charles packed us a hospital bag. Don't judge, we'd done all the laundry in anticipation of packing that morning, so there. Charles carried it all out to the car, with the carseat and birthing ball, and we headed on our way. The hospital is about ten blocks away, and it was a quick ride, and we got there at about 6. I had started feeling contractions every four minutes or so, but they were totally manageable. I knew that if labor stayed that way, I was going to kick labor butt.

They checked me right into the room with the laboring tub because I was hoping to go unmedicated. They held a lithmus strip up to me and announced there was meconium and that I was there for the duration, so we hunkered down and got down to business. I was breathing through contractions and staying pretty relaxed. We walked around and kept moving into new positions to see what worked, and then the contractions started lasting two minutes and coming one right after the other without a break in between. I got to the point that I couldn't stand through the contractions, and sitting was excrutiating, and I was stuck laying on my side just wanting to die. I said the secret password Charles and I had worked out to let him know I was serious when I told him I wanted the epidural. I wanted it. I said the word, he passed it on, and it took a matter of five minutes for the anesthesiologist to show up and do his job. In that five minutes, I broke down and told the midwife to just get a knife and cut the kid out of me. She didn't, but she did give me some morphine. That was totally against my birth plan, and I didn't even remember that at the time. This was seven hours into my labor, so I feel like I put up a good show at least before the epidural. And nobody can tell me I chose poorly, because the rest of my labor was a breeze, and I was a happy camper.

I took a nap for an hour or two, along with Charles, who was pretty worn out by my antics up until that point. The nurse came in about five and told me she'd get the midwife cuz I was ready to push. I stopped pushing the epidural button, and let the epidural wear off as much as possible before I got to work. I pushed for two hours, pretty much falling asleep between each contraction, but it really helped to be able to feel the contractions, so I'm glad I stopped the epidural when I did. Charles, by the way was really helpful during the pushing stage. He held his breath and pushed with me each time, and his muscles were probably as tired as mine the next day! I would have laughed at him if I wasn't otherwise occupied. Alas, I really was.

Because there was meconiom in the amniotif fluid, they decided to have the nursery nurse and the respiratory therapist in the room as a precaution, and it turned out to be necessary, unfortunately.

Olivia (who was still unnamed at the time, and for a few days afterward) had swallowed and aspirated the amniotic fluid, and her lungs were actually coated in the meconium. It was counteracting the natural lining of her lungs, and while she was definitely able to breathe on her own, she was not able to oxygenate any blood. As a result, her lungs were under immense pressure, her heart was weakened by the lack of oxygen, and they were concerned that her brain had sustained permanent damage.

Charles followed Livie to the nursery, where she was sent before they determined how serious her condition was. She was then sent to the NICU, where they started a brand new treatment where they cooled down her core temperature to about 92 degrees in order to keep her brain from swelling from any damage she had received. This is a treatment that has only been available in this state for about eight months, and has only been at our hospital since December. It has to be begun within six hours of birth, and it was begun pretty quickly after Olivia was born.

About forty five minutes after I gave birth (at 7:36 pm, by the way) Charles came in with the doctor to hold my hand while he gave us the news.

There should be a legal limit to the number of times a neonatologist can say "life-threatening" and "the odds are not good" in one conversation. I'm going to be lobbying for that in the future. Really, he was not sounding hopeful that my baby would make it through the night, and he was telling me that he was purposely inducing a hypothermic state in my newborn infant, who I had yet to touch.

This all came as such a shock to me that I was able to completely hold it together while he delivered the news. That was just because it didn't seem real, and I was pretty sure I was being falsely punked or something. When the doctor left and Charles and I were alone, he asked how I was doing, and I realized I wasn't doing too great. "I want my mommy" was all I could get out before I started bawling. We had a few minutes to cry together, before I insisted on being wheeled to the NICU and seeing my baby.

That was when they told us that in addition to the possible brain damage and the fact that her heart wasn't doing too great, Livie had meningitis and pneumonia, so she was on antibiotics. A 21 day round of IV antibiotics, meaning she'd be there at least three weeks. Well, three weeks is up today, and she's beaten the pneumonia, meningitis, heart problems, breathing problems, and proven that her brain is top-notch. She just needs to learn how to eat!

Because she was on respirators and stuff for so long, she just barely started being fed by mouth a week ago. She's learned how to latch, suck, swallow and breathe at the same time, which is pretty incredible for a kid who's had tubes shoved down her throat most of her life. She just doesn't have much stamina yet, because she's been fighting so hard, so we still have to use her feeding tube to finish off her feeds when she poops out.

In order to come home, Livie must take all of her feeds by mouth and gain weight for two days in a row. Who knows when that's going to happen, but she's doing her best. Everyday she gets more milk in her tummy through her mouth, and that what we need. It'll probably be another week before we can take her home, though.

It's strange how sometimes I can feel so maternal to Olivia, and then I can come home and live my life like usual with Charles and Wilson. It hurts every time we leave her in the hospital, and come home like we never even had a baby. I feel like a bad mom, leaving her there with nurses who occasionally call her a "him" or put her in newborn diapers (she needs a size 1, now). But I also hate going there and trying to feed her with all those nurses popping their heads around the silly privacy screen and offering "helpful" advice.

Last week I showed up at the special care nursery that Livie had been in for the last few days, and nobody answered the door. Apparently they had moved her and the other babies to the regular special care nursery, but hadn't called to tell us. So I was freaking out that I couldn't get in to see my baby and that nobody was in there watching her monitors. Or that someone was in there, but they were trying to resuscitate my kid and couldn't answer the door. I don't appreciate being this emotionally vulnerable. By the time I found Olivia, I was totally panicked and ready to break down. I did, that night. I cried for an hour on Charles' shoulder, then took an Ambien and stayed asleep as long as I could. I think it helped to be able to get some rest, because I'm doing much better now, but I'm still not crazy about the situation.

We've picked out her coming home outfit and it's laid out and ready. Her carseat is installed, her cradle and crib are both set up and have clean bedding, and we're just waiting for Olivia to be strong enough to come home forever. Patience is a virtue, but it's definitely not my strongest suit, so I'm learning a lot right now.

reality check

So, I'm supposed to be headed back to work on Monday. Not sure how that's gonna work out.

on a side note, it's been kind of a blessing for Charles not to have a job right now. He hasn't had to ask for time off, and he's been with me the whole ordeal. I couldn't do this without his constant hugs and reassurances. He's still looking, though, if you know of any openings in the area. Or in Florida. We'd settle for Florida.