2009 Christmas Newsletter

Below is our Christmas letter for this year, without the pictures. If you'd like the version with pictures and we haven't e-mailed it to you soon, just let us know and we'll e-mail it ASAP! Thanks - Chad

Leslie and I are happy to be writing our third (I think) Christmas Newsletter together. Like everyone else, it’s been a busy and nerve-wracking year for us. But it’s been great too, and we hope that you enjoy hearing about it!

Little Miss Olivia

First, and truly foremost, Leslie and I were truly blessed to welcome little Miss Olivia Grace Stevens into our family in July.

I’ll be honest, most of this newsletter will focus solely on our little girl. If you don’t want to read about her, I suggest you either skip to the latter pages or just stop altogether.

Olivia truly is a little miracle. For those of you who are unaware of the circumstances surrounding her birth, here are the Cliff’s Notes…

Leslie and I found out during the last month of her pregnancy that Olivia had mysteriously stopped growing. After a series of tests and a lot of tears, it was determined that she had a “genetic abnormality” that wasn’t life threatening. The doctors took all of the necessary precautions and Olivia was born on July 20. Initially, they thought Olivia was a happy, but tiny, little girl. Our world was shattered the day after her birth, when a very “clinical” doctor (read: one with an absolute lack of bedside manner) told us he thought Olivia had Trisomy 18…very bad. Little ones with this genetic abnormality don’t usually last too long, about 2 weeks on average. For those of you thinking, “this is a Christmas letter, Chad…it’s supposed to be happy!”…just hang in there, it has a happy ending that I’ll get to right now.

It turns out this “diagnosis” was really just the doctor’s best guess and turned out to be wrong. We all cried A LOT, and I mean a lot, and rejoiced that our little girl was going to be OK! 57 days later, we brought her home and she’s been fat and happy ever since. Olivia has been doing great; her official diagnosis was a chromosomal deletion, which means part of one of her chromosomes “fell off.” What that means for her is a few thing – she’s far-sighted (no biggie), has a few, insignificant skeletal changes (no biggie) and has some hearing loss that we’ll continue to monitor. If you read one sentence in this entire news letter, please let it be the next one. Olivia is doing great and we love her with all of our hearts! She’s been an inspiration to a lot of the people who have met her, she’s so strong and such a fighter.

We’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who supported us at the hospital and continues to support us now. It was always nice to see people at the hospital and talk to those on the phone who couldn’t make it. I know one thing for sure, we lived a completely different life during Olivia’s time in the hospital…our biggest decision during the day was where we were going to eat lunch. Everything else was a constant – wake up, go to the hospital, stay until it was time to eat dinner, go home, eat dinner, sleep, repeat.

Because of Olivia’s courage and the great care she received from the neonatology team at Texas Children’s Hospital, Leslie and I established an endowment in Olivia’s name to help future little ones get the best care they can and give them the best chance to thrive! We’ve been truly blown away by the contributions we’ve received to the endowment already; a HUGE thank-you to everyone who has already contributed. If you are interested in Olivia’s endowment or would like to make a contribution, we’d encourage you to check out the link titled “The Olivia Grace Stevens Endowed Fund for Neonatology” on Olivia’s blog (I know, that sounds weird to me too). The link is… http://oliviastevens.blogspot.com.

The Rest – It’s true, it’s not that significant compared to Olivia’s Story.

Settling In to Our Home

We spent our first full year at our house in the Houston Heights, an area that we love more and more every day! We love taking the dogs running on all the nearby trails; it’s a little urban oasis and one of the few true neighborhoods anywhere near the inner loop in Houston.

We’ve loved getting to know some of our neighbors. We’re so lucky to have good people on both sides of us; Rod and Charlie and Dave and Kara couldn’t be better neighbors! Dave and Kara – thanks for everything this year, we’ve really enjoyed getting to hang out and all of the help you’ve given us! If anyone is looking for a delicious, calorie-filled and fat-rich dinner, just get in touch with Kara – she makes one heck of a fettucine, seafoody, cajuny pasta thing.

World Travels

Before Olivia was born, Leslie and I took a trip to Puerto Rico to just enjoy one last hurrah before our family grew by one. It seems like we all do this…one last something before a major event like graduation, a marriage or a baby. Either way, it was fun…we stayed in a great hotel that had a great casino in it that we actually won a nice little sum of money in. Nothing like a casino in your hotel as far as I’m concerned. (Author’s Note: I do realize there’s a whole city called Las Vegas dedicated to this principle.) Anyway, we had a great time exploring San Juan and the surrounding areas, and just spending some time relaxing at the hotel.

We took a few other trips as well; Leslie went to Prague for work and I was all over the place for work. This year I hit up Angola, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia and Kazakhstan (a trip for which I missed watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl…)

Lots of Visits with Friends and Family

In all honesty, we didn’t travel as much as we have in the past few years, but we still managed to see a lot of family and friends. Of course, my parents came to meet little Miss Olivia after she was born.

We saw a lot of friends too: Milena spent a few days with us; Katie and Sabrina stopped by too! I managed to see some friends from Penn State, including a few trips to Mike’s in Chicago (shout out to Poochie at the Weiner Circle and my sista’ Biba) and some old friends from Houston – it was nice to see Melissa from my MBA program during a trip to NYC earlier in the year.

So we hope you have a great Christmas! We’ll leave you with one more picture of Olivia, one of the newest Nittany Lions!

Olivia's First Thanksgiving, a Trip Downtown, and Christmas Photos!

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year--we had a lot to be thankful for! Chad and I hosted at our house for the first time ever...a little intimidating, but thanks to Chad's superior turkey cooking skills and my family members all pitching in, it went great and was a ton of fun. Lots of laughing, enjoying of wine, and passing around of Olivia from person to person--I don't think her feet ever touched the ground! It was also neat because it was actually last Thanksgiving when we broke the news to my family that I was pregnant, so how amazing to sit here exactly one year later with our little miracle Olivia as a beautiful four-month old baby. Here are some pics from the day:

Olivia in her "Baby's 1st Thanksgiving" onesie and matching hat (thanks to my dear friend Kimmy for giving this to Olivia!)

Olivia with her new orthopedic shoes (or her snowboard, as we call it), which recently replaced her casts. She pretty much hated it the first day she got it, but she quickly got used to it and hardly seems to notice it most of the time now. We get to take the bar and shoes off for 4 hours every day, so that is cherished time for us!

Olivia with her proud Daddy & Mommy

Honey with Olivia

Aunt Lisa and Ian with Olivia

Uncle Peter with Olivia (during some of her 4 hours of "no-snowboard" time!)

"Via Colori" Fundraiser in Downtown Houston
We took Olivia a couple weekends ago to a fundraising event called Via Colori, where hundreds of local artists come and create works of art in chalk on the streets of downtown. We went with Aunt Lisa and her boyfriend Ian, and we had a lot of fun. The event is held to raise money for the Center for Hearing and Speech, a wonderful school and speech therapy center in Houston that helps teach hearing impaired kids to listen and speak. Olivia is going to start doing weekly therapy at the Center, and we are really excited for her to start there as they do some pretty amazing stuff with the kids. We took her in recently for her hearing evaluation, a prerequisite for starting therapy with them. Obviously with a baby you can't do the standard hearing test you do with adults (sit in a sound booth and raise your hand every time you hear a sound), so it's much more based on watching the baby to see if they react to certain sounds. So the audiologist, Chad and I all watched Olivia very closely as the various tones and sounds were played while she was wearing her hearing aids, and it did seem that there were several times that she reacted specifically to a particular sound. Then the head of their speech therapy department assessed her next by presenting more sounds, and again she consistently responded when he would present the various sounds--we all saw it, and it seemed pretty crystal clear and way too consistent to be just coincidence. So we were thrilled, as this means that her hearing aids are actually helping her to hear better, which the audiologist at the hospital was not very optimistic that they would. We have a renewed motivation now to make sure that her hearing aids are in as much as possible every day (not an easy feat with a feisty baby who is very good at getting them out of her ears!)

Our Christmas Card Photo Shoot!
With Christmas coming up soon we decided recently that we needed to take a nice family photo to put on our Christmas card, so our very sweet friend and next door neighbor Kara agreed to come take some pictures of us. Kara brought her awesome camera and her keen eye for photography, and we think the results were great. Chad and I "dressed up" (hey, I wore makeup, which I've only done like four times since Olivia was born, so this was a big deal!) and we put Olivia in her beautiful Christmas dress from Gramma Mary. Olivia was such a champ through the whole session, not fussing at all and staying very alert for the camera. I think she knew how pretty she looked and was enjoying it! ;-) We took her various accessories off her face (glasses, nasal cannula), so you can actually see her whole beautiful little face, a rare treat for us. Here is the shot we chose for our cards, as well as some other cute candids Kara took.

Olivia sucking on Daddy's nose--she loves doing this with us and it feels SO cute!

Olivia sucking on something she loves even more than our noses...a lollipop! Again, my disclaimer is that her speech therapist told us to try this to stimulate her mouth, and we never give her more than a few licks at a time!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well and are getting as excited for Christmas as we are. Take care and keep in touch, and thanks for all the continued thoughts, prayers and well wishes for our sweet little girl...she is thriving and we are thrilled with her progress!

Glasses, Hearing Aids and Nasal Canulas...Oh My!

Little Olivia is not so little anymore! Today we were at the hospital and Olivia weighed a whopping 11 pounds (with her casts, diaper and onesie.) It's still an astonishing amount of weight gain, last Monday she was 9 pounds 7 ounces without casts but in a diaper and onesie. Say she gained a little less than a pound in 10 days, we'll take it!

On another good note, Olivia has been home more days now (59) than she was in the NICU at Texas Childrens (57.) I didn't think it would be a big deal, but it was nice knowing she's spent more of her life outside the hospital than in it!

Every day Olivia shows us just how resilient and intelligent she is. Despite our ongoing concerns about her development, she continues to show us she's her own person with her own agenda. Yesterday, we saw our first clear indication of joy from Olivia! Casper was laying above her flopping his tail on and off her face...it was so FUNNY! She started smiling and giggling, it was honestly adorable! Today, she did a little more of the same when we'd tickle and kiss her ever growing little belly. She's truly a little miracle that we're inspired by every day.

Medically, Olivia is doing great too! She's really starting to explore the world around her with her new glasses. It's pretty rare to see her with her eyes shut when she's awake. She's growing both physically and mentally and we're confident that she'll be off oxygen and be feeding orally soon (in relative terms.) Today, Olivia got her hearing aids, which she's tolerating very well. Please keep her little ears in your prayers, hopefully something in her brain will "turn on" and she'll start hearing like a rabbit (they have good hearing right?) Only time will tell, but a few prayers can't hurt anything.

Candy Canes, Glasses and Halloween, Oh My!

Olivia has been really busy lately! First, she got her new glasses last week, and so we have been practicing wearing them and trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to keep Olivia from constantly ripping them off her face. Here she is wearing her new spectacles, while simultaneously sitting in her little chair, or her Baby La-Z-Boy, as I like to refer to it. You'll notice she has her casts on--this is her final set of casts to finish correcting her club feet. Her feet have been doing great and have been progressing exactly like the doctors wanted, and on Monday she underwent a little outpatient surgery where they cut both of her Achilles tendons (I know, it sounds terrible). With this last set of casts, which will be on for 3 weeks, the tendons will heal themselves so that they are no longer so tight, thus relieving all that tension that's been causing her feet to point downward. We were so proud of Olivia and how she did during her procedure, which we stayed in the room for--she is such a tough, strong little girl.


Olivia has gradually been getting more comfortable with her glasses, as evidenced by the picture below of her conked out with her glasses askew. Wonder where she gets it from? See right below that.


Another new prop we've been using with Olivia is candy, used sparingly for her oral-motor therapy. We took a video of her licking a candy cane, and as you can see, she seems to have a bit of a sweet tooth (er, sweet gums?), just like Daddy! (sorry the video is sideways...I can't figure out how to rotate it.)



And of course Olivia had to dress up for her first Halloween. We tried going trick-or-treating, but no one seemed to be handing out breast milk this year...jerks. :-( Actually, since Chad was out of town, my family came over and we walked to a nearby restaurant to enjoy the beautiful weather and get Olivia out and about in her pumpkin costume (courtesy of Chad's mom--thanks Mary!) She actually had 1 Halloween costume and 2 Halloween onesies (I mean, why wouldn't she have 3 outfits for 1 day?), so below are a couple pictures.


So as you can see, Olivia has been keeping a busy calendar lately, but she does still manage to squeeze in lots of sleep too! Now we are just eagerly anticipating her first holiday season, which promises to be busy but lots of fun. We can't wait!

Olivia is 3 Months (& 1 Week...oops) Old!

I intended to write a new post on Olivia's actual 3-month birthday, but I didn't quite get around to it until today, one week later. I absolutely cannot believe that she is already 3 months old...it makes me both really happy (to see how far our little girl has come and how much she is growing and developing) and a little bit sad too (to know that my time being at home with her on a full-time basis grows a bit shorter every day and that this is just the beginning of that whole "they grow up so fast" thing that other parents always tell you). But by and large we are thrilled to see her growing every day and making so much progress. She weighs 9 pounds now, and soon enough she'll be in the double-digits...that seemed so unimaginable 3 months ago when she weighed less than 4 pounds! It's great seeing our little girl with some cute fat rolls and dimples where they didn't previously exist!

Life continues to be busy in the Stevens household--we've had lots of follow-up doctors visits these last couple weeks with the various specialists from Texas Children's Hospital, and overall Olivia is doing really well in most areas. Her opthamologist wrote us a prescription last week for Olivia to get glasses to help with her farsightedness, so those should be coming in this week. They are going to be tiny and pink and I cannot wait to see her in them! More importantly, I can't wait to see how she reacts to her new glasses and how it changes how she looks at the world around her. We are very optimistic that the glasses will really help her vision and help her to see her toys, our faces, etc. (basically anything that is at a short range) so much more clearly. You can be sure we'll post some pictures of Olivia in her cute little glasses once she gets them! (that is, if we can get her to keep them on for any length of time...she is, after all, famous for ripping things off her face, like her nasal cannula and her feeding tube when she was in the NICU).

We've been doing lots of developmental exercises with Olivia, and today when I was doing her oral motor exercises (stimulating her mouth/lips/tongue to help with her sucking/swallowing functions and help prepare her for making sounds and speaking later on), I learned that she really likes chocolate flavored lollipops! It was the funniest thing, seeing her licking so eagerly at that lollipop--Chad and I were cracking up watching her. I promise, I'm not giving my infant excessive amounts of candy at this young age--just a few licks to get her mouth stimulated. And I didn't come up with this crazy idea on my own...her speech therapist recommended it and even gave me the lollipop, so if this makes me a bad mom then I blame it all on the therapist!

Here are some of the latest and greatest pictures of Olivia...it's a rare day that goes by that we don't take at least one picture of her!

Olivia opening her left eye nice and wide, while wearing her cute A&M onesie that our good friend Katie Geurin gave her recently


And this is one of the great pictures Katie took while she was visiting, with her awesome professional camera--thanks Katie!


Olivia, a vision in pink. This was from the day I took her to CVS and an old man asked me if she was a girl...uh, no, she's my son that I like to dress in pink onesies and pink headbands...of course she's a girl!


Olivia sitting up like a big girl! (with a little support from Mom) This is one of our strength exercises we do every day, and fortunately she hates it slightly less than she hates tummy time, so there's not as much crying involved with this one!

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...with 2 eyes open!

those kicks were fast as lightning. In fact, it was a little bit frightening.



Olivia has been opening her right eye, the smaller of the two, a lot more. She's also been making even more little noises, which are so fun to watch and listen to.

We caught her in an especially alert mood this morning and took this video. If you listen carefully you can hear a couple of toots too!

Continued Progress

Having a cute little baby is time consuming! It feels like we just put a new post on here and it's been almost two weeks.

Olivia is doing great, she continues to amaze us every day with things that may seem little, but to us are simply amazing. She's started making little noises when she's awake, it's so fascinating to see her discover that she has a voice. She's also started to get much stronger and can control her head pretty well. Her beautiful little eyes are opening more and more, wider and wider, and for longer and longer. I'm sure every parents thinks this, but it's really awesome to watch her soak in the world around her. We always wish we could understand what she was thinking when she experiences or learns something new. I don't know how anyone could not believe in God after having a child and watching them grow; in my mind there's no way a person could grow and develop into the people we all become without Him watching over us.

Every day for us is interesting. I feel like we're always devising some sort of strategy for something new that hits us. Leslie has said that flexibility is the key and I couldn't agree with her more. It's so much fun taking care of Olivia, my favorite is diaper changing! I guess that may change when she starts eating solid food, but for now it's great!

Life at Home

It's been two weeks now since Olivia came home, and it has absolutely flown by. We have been keeping so busy and having so much fun with Olivia that we have neglected the blog, so it's time to provide an update! As you can imagine, Olivia has had a lot of "firsts" over the last couple weeks. To name a few: watching her first Penn State football game on TV with Daddy, taking her first (of many, I'm sure) trips to Target, going on her first stroll around the neighborhood, etc. And we've documented it all with pictures along the way of course!

We've settled into a pretty good routine with Olivia--she and I stay home during the day and our main activities are eating, cuddling, hanging out (with Olivia in her little Boppy bed on top of our bed), playing with her various toys, looking at her red/black/white flashcards that Daddy made for her, changing lots of diapers (and outfits...somehow she often manages to soil a couple outfits per day!), and then getting lots of special time in with Daddy when he gets home. Fortunately Chad's managers at work have been so wonderful and understanding, so he has had a lot of flexibility in his schedule and gets to join almost all of Olivia's doctors appointments and just generally spend lots of time with us.

Here are some pics from the last couple weeks:

Daddy & Olivia walking around our 'hood on a nice cool evening


Miss Olivia in her bouncy chair getting inspected (a.k.a. sniffed) by Chip--he is very interested in and very protective of his little "sissy"

Olivia & Daddy on college game day--Penn State beat Temple 31-7!


Olivia's first time wearing a dress (thanks Gramma Mary!)



One of Olivia's new favorite pastimes--napping with Daddy! This was nap #1 captured on film...

Nap #2...

and nap #3!


Of course sometimes Mommy and Olivia like to nap together too...

Who knows how long it will be until we post again, but we'll try our best to keep up with it, in between all our activities with Miss Olivia! Thanks to all for your continued interest, thoughts and prayers--we appreciate it now as much as ever!

Olivia's Homecoming!!

We almost can't believe it finally happened, but it did...Olivia came home today! After 8 long weeks of being in the NICU at Texas Children's, our sweetpea finally got discharged. It was such an amazing feeling to have our nurse disconnect her from the monitor that's been tracking all her vital signs for the last two months, and to finally get to put her in her car seat and stroller. I can't even explain how happy we were just pushing her down the hallway toward the parking garage, as we finally felt "free" of the confines of the hospital (great as they've been) and were able to expose her to an environment other than the NICU, which is all she's ever known. I think tomorrow we'll attempt our first outdoor excursion--maybe a little stroll around the block, nothing too crazy, but just to let Olivia feel fresh air and sunlight on her skin will be so wonderful!

So after we drove home very carefully and got Miss Olivia home safe and sound, we basically just reveled in having her at home finally. We hung out with her for about 10 hours straight, just trading her back and forth between the two of us. We held her on our bed, rocked her in the gliding rocking chair, propped her up in her Boppy on the bed, etc. We did some tummy time on the bed, played with her with some of her toys, and Chad even gave her a little massage. Today was all about enjoying Olivia and making her homecoming as fun and comfortable for her as possible! And she really seemed to enjoy it all--she was more alert today than we've ever seen her before. She was awake almost all day, just looking around our room, taking in all the new sights and sounds, etc. Every time she seemed to be about to doze off, she would get a new burst of energy! It was awesome just seeing her soak it all in for the first time. I can only imagine what she'll think of the great outdoors tomorrow!

Here are some pictures of our big day...

Olivia in her car seat, getting ready to leave the NICU


Daddy, Mommy & Olivia right before leaving the hospital


Mommy & Olivia hanging out on the bed


Daddy & Olivia doing the same


And finally...bedtime! All swaddled up and comfy in her Pack 'n Play bassinet next to our bed.

And this little video below isn't from today, but it is just so cute and I have been meaning to post it, so I figured I'd slide it in too...

Thanks again to everyone for all your prayers for Olivia's health and well being and for this much anticipated day to come...it all paid off and the big day finally came! We'll keep you posted on life at home with Olivia, but so far it's all we've been dreaming of and more!

Almost Home

Little Olivia is no longer so little, as of last night she's up to 2700 grams or 5 lbs. 15 ozs.!!!!! She's almost to the 6 pound mark and we're finding out that all of those clothes that used to be so huge on her barely fit. The past few days we've discovered that Olivia has grown out of a few onesies, I guess that's something that was inevitable but I can remember a time when I thought that it would never happen.

Even better news...with any luck we'll be taking Olivia home next Tuesday. Of course, that could change but we're cautiously optimistic that she'll be home soon. For all of you in Houston, please drive extra safe on Tuesday and if you see a silver 4Runner going VERY VERY slow don't get mad, it might be us with our little girl! We're so excited to bring her home after 8 weeks in the hospital. We know that we'll have to take her to the hospital quite a bit for a little while, but it's better than paying rent at the place like we are now. To start, Olivia will be on oxygen and still tube feeding but we know that won't last for ever!

Mommy and daddy continue to plug through the day to day slog, so please keep sending your wishes and prayers. We can't tell you how much that has meant to us! Thank you!

OK - now for obligatory fashion show of cute little Olivia and her burgeoning wardrobe. I swear, she has more clothes than me!


Miss Olivia with Mommy in her Boppy bed!



Front view of "My Daddy Loves Me" outfit (It's true!)



Rear (end) view of "My Daddy Loves Me" outfit



Olivia's Strawberry Shortcake ouftit (Thanks Gramma)

"I'm a little lady"

Olivia had a great surprise this week, Gramma and Papa Stevens came to visit from Pennsylvania. It was the first time Olivia had met them and we were so happy to have them here to spend time with us and Olivia. Although Gramma loved holding Olivia and Papa was afraid to touch her because "she was too small", we all had a great time. Thanks for coming mom and dad!

I'll just get right to the other point on this posting, Olivia already has quite a wardrobe. Some of her favorites are her "I'm a Little Lady" onesie, her yellow onesie with yellow ruffles on the toosh, and her doggie onesie with dog feet. All of the nurses crack up at all of her clothes. In fact, she has so many outfits at the hospital that they brought us a three-drawer rubbermaid container to hold all of them (and her assorted hospital supplies.)

Here's a sampling of her favorite outfits. Of course, you've already seen her favorite outfit...her Penn State onesie!


Doggie outfit w/ Aunt Lisa!



With Gramma and Papa Stevens!



Sleeping in her Boppy bed!


Another cute one!



One of her few non-pink outfits.

It's been a while...

A lot has been going on with little Miss Olivia, so much in fact, that we've neglected our blog a little bit (sorry!) to keep up with her.

Last Wednesday, Olivia had her first surgery. The great doctors at TX Children's inserted a more permamnent feeding tube into her cute little belly. This replaced the tube that was in her nose that had been feeding her. She did a great job and showed us that she's such a little fighter. Even at 6 weeks old, she's already stronger than most of the people I know. She's such an amazing, resilient little girl.

Since her surgery, Olivia has been recovering (very well) and we've been looking forward to having her come home. Our previous doctor (they rotate monthly) had hoped we could come home this week. Unfortunately, that isn't in the cards. Our new doctor is hoping to have her home in the next few weeks. That has been extremely frustrating to us as we were looking to have her home, but we'll be patiently waiting.

So we've been at the hospital for going on 7 weeks now, and it's pretty frustrating. I'll spend the last few sentences of this post asking everyone for continued prayer for little Olivia to continue to grow, get healthy and do all the things that little babies do. A secondary prayer, much less important to us, is for our sanity through this process. Just when we think we see the light and the end of the tunnel, the tunnel gets longer! Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, hearing from everyone helps us manage this process better!

Love - Chad

We Are...Penn State

Little Olivia and I have been learning about one of the good things in life...Penn State and Penn State Football (and the Houston Rockets.) In the picture above, I'm reading Olivia her favorite book "Hello Nittany Lion" where the Nittany Lion travels to a Penn State Football game past all the "famous" Penn State landmarks like the Nittany Lion Shrine, Old Main, the Creamery, the Nittany Lion Inn, the University Gates and OF COURSE BEAVER STADIUM where he meets Joe Pa! What great childhood reading!

Here's another picture of our sweet pea and her proud papa!



And her Rockets t-shirt with Clutch on it! You'll also notice Snuggles, Olivia's sea horse friend!

Large and In Charge - Olivia hits 5 lbs!

Good news! Tonight Olivia gained 75 grams, to get to 2275 grams or 5 pounds! While not Earth-shattering, it's another major milestone for us. She continues to grow and get healthy.

Olivia is back on her nasal cannula and off bottle feeding, it looks like she wasn't quite ready to master that task. While she has a good suck (so I'm told), she seems to be aspirating a little bit. She'll be on the cannula for the weekend and then we'll see how she does! This is not alarming to us in any way, just a little bump in the road.

On a more happy note, yesterday Olivia celebrated her 1 month birthday. Unfortunately, I had to travel to Philadelphia for work but came home with a birthday present for Olivia, a book "Commander in Leash" about President Obama's dog, Bo. My present was reading it to her, while she looked at me with her eyes, which she's opening a lot more!

Bottle Feeding, Eye Opening and Baby Massage

It's been a little while since our last post, so the guilt has finally gotten to me...hence this post.

Little Olivia is doing great, she continues to make progress in all of the areas that are "important." She now weighs 4 lbs. 13 ounces, just 3 ozs. from 5 lbs!!! She continues to learn to open her eyes, is starting to keep them open for a long while and beginning to focus on objects close enough for her to look at. We've also learned how to give baby massages, which she obviously loves. I mean, who doesn't like massages? Even the ladies at the hospital are starting make comments about how spoiled our little Olivia is becoming!

The biggest news is that we're starting to bottle feed our little girl, which is a huge step to getting her home. She started off slow 4 days ago, taking 5-8 cubic centimeters, but yesterday she took all 15 twice! When I fed her in the afternoon, she took the entire bottle then fussed at me because she couldn't get anymore! We know for sure she has her parents' appetite.

More Big Steps for Olivia!

Miss Olivia continues to make great progress every day, thanks to God and the wonderful staff at Texas Children's. Here are the latest and greatest updates and changes!

• Olivia got upgraded on Monday from the Level 3 NICU (most intensive) to Level 2! Level 2 is way more laid back, and we are so happy to have her there now--especially because the next move after Level 2 will be to bring her HOME!
  
• She now weighs in at 4 pounds 7 ounces (or 2010 grams), so she is getting closer to having gained a full pound since birth, which is exciting! And, she has surpassed the magical 2000 grams threshold at which the doctors start considering sending babies home (assuming they're ready in all other areas as well).
• Today we started reintroducing Olivia to bottle feeding, as she has been fed exclusively through a tube into her nose for the last few weeks. She didn't finish the whole bottle, but she still did great--she was very interested in her milk and made it clear that she was not happy any time we took the bottle away for even a second! (she is definitely her mommy and daddy's child when it comes to eating...)
• We've started doing more developmental activities with Olivia, like reading to her and playing musical toys for her. The first time I played her Baby Einstein classical music toy a couple days ago, she almost immediately turned toward it and started opening her eyes!

Here are a couple pictures of Olivia in her "big girl bed" (a.k.a., a regular crib), which she moved into a week ago when the doctors decided she was ready to leave her heated isolette behind:




Here are Olivia and Daddy together a couple days ago, doing our favorite activity (skin-to-skin time):


As always, we want to thank all of you for your continued interest in how Olivia's doing, and all your support, friendship and prayers--it has meant so much to us!