Olivia's Beginning

Olivia began her journey of life three months earlier than expected and God is the reason that she is alive today.
Momma ended up with pre-eclampsia and going into the hospital on August 16, 2006. They tried bedrest to buy some more time for Olivia but it wasn't working. Mom's blood pressure continued to rise and her kidneys started shutting down. We were transferred to Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on August 17th. Olivia was born via c-section on August 18, 2006. She wasn't due until November 18, 2006.
She weighed 1 lb 7 oz and was 12 inches long. She was a beautiful baby for a preemie.
She was on a ventilator and under bili lights for the first three days. At four days old, Olivia pulled out her ventilator, she did so well without they decided to leave it off and just put a nasal cannula on. The nurses told us they were amazed at her, they had never seen a baby as small as her off the ventilator already. But that was only the beginning of the amazing things this tiny baby would do.
At five days old she was crying during her hands on time, the nurse on duty at that time was shocked because she said she'd had some that small make noise but never cry out yet. All of her nurses say that she is onry, Grandma and Papa keep insisting that she gets that from her mommy, but I don't know what they are talking about!!

I finally got to hold my precious little baby at 10 days old for the first time. I got to hold her in what they call "Kangaroo hold", which is where they put the baby on your chest, skin to skin, and then cover her with warm blankets. Keeping her warm is very important. I only got to hold her for about 40 minutes, which of course was not near long enough, but it was wonderful! I just cried and cried and made sure my mom caught my tears, because I was afraid they would hurt her. If I'd only known then what I know now. But after holding her it made it even harder to leave the hospital without her. Thankfully we had a hotel room right down the street and could go up and see her whenever we felt like it. Unfortunatly the more I held her the more I realized that she would lose precious weight that she worked so hard to put on, so I made the decision to put off holding her for a while so she could gain weight and get closer to coming home, because once she came home I could hold her all the time!! She had to weigh at least 4 lbs before she could leave the hospital and we still hadn't made it to two lbs. I prayed every night for God to hold her in his hands, because even though I couldn't, he could and she needed to feel that love!
Mommy and Daddy still went to see Olivia daily in the hospital, we weren't holding her everyday but we could still talk to her and see her. She finally reached 2lbs at 1mth 3 days old and continued to make great progress and developed perfectly. She did not have any major problems that some preemies have. She did great in the NICU and she always seem to be doing better than babies bigger than her.
The only scare we had was on October 10th, 2006. The doctor called us at the hotel room and said that Olivia's leg was swelling, they weren't sure what was going on but they were trying to find out. She mentioned "infection", which with a preemie you never want to hear. We rushed down to the hospital, Jesse drove and I don't even remember the drive there. They did blood work, xrays and finally an mri. This is when we discovered that her legs were as bowed as they were. Anyways the result was she had a hairline fracture in her right femur that was almost healed. They think it happened in utero. She went on to be fine and never had any other problems.

She spent 12 long weeks in the hospital, it seemed like she was never going to come home. I think she gave all the doctors and nurses up there a run for their money. There were a few nurses I wasn't sure were going to let us bring her home, they had fallen in love with our precious baby girl. But she finally came home on November 10, 2006, just eight days before her original due date. She weighed 4 lbs and 8.6 oz. She did not come home on any monitors, which was kind of a relief. I think I would have been more nervous if she would have. I heard there are a lot of false alarms with those. It didn't matter though, she was finally home and that is what we had prayed for. A happy, healthy baby, we didn't care how small she was and we thank God every day for her!