Week 1 Day 4 Update

Little Olivia, or "sweet pea" as I call her, is doing great!!!! Today we had a great breakthrough, Olivia started bottle feeding. She had been fed through a tube for most of her previous feedings. Bottle feeding means she's getting stronger, obviously a good thing! We're also learning to swaddle, check temperatures, change diapers, etc...all under the watchful eye of our nurses, it's like free training!



Here's a picture of Olivia in her "Little Princess" onesie.


She continues to grow and now weighs 3 lbs. 15 ozs. She gets weighed every night and the nurses have come to expect our phone call sometime around 9:30 or 10:00 PM every night to check on her. We've also become a staple at Texas Children's, it seems like we know every one of the nurses, doctors, etc. around that place.



It might seem like we're a little OCD about her weight. OK, maybe we are, but it's one huge factor in her overall growth and strength. If she gains weight, she regulates her breathing better, grows, maintains her body temperature and is making progress toward coming home!

Week 1 Update

Little Olivia continues to grow and show signs of improvement. She's within 30 grams of her birth weight and moving more every day. We've seen a couple of milestones over the past few days... all of them were so exciting to us!!!

• A few days back she opened her eyes for the first time (just for a second or two) and showed us her bright blue eyes!
  
• She also turned her head from one side to the other all by herself.
• I swaddled Olivia for the first time, despite my best efforts to mess it up, she ended up looking like a little baby burrito.
  

Olivia is still spending her time at Texas Children's Hospital. Right now she's in an isolette so her little lungs can continue to grow stronger, other than that she's eating well and everything else continues to improve.


Despite all of these challenges, our love for little Olivia continues to grow every day. We are constantly thanking God for her, she's our little miracle! Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers, we really appreciate it.

Chad

Day 3 Update - Olivia and Mommy are doing great!

It's been quite an interesting journey Leslie, Olivia and I have been on the past few days...with some ups and downs. The best news of all is that Olivia and Leslie continue to do great.

Mommy
Leslie continues to heal and is right on track. She'll be discharged from the hospital today and is up walking around, eating and wearing "street clothes" again. That's all we can ask for, so continue to pray for her continued healing!



Olivia
Olivia continues to eat, sleep and poop, which I guess is all you can ask for. The past few days have been a real challenge for her (and Leslie and I.) When Olivia was born she was pretty small and had some difficulties. Thankfully, we were aware of these potential issues while Leslie was still pregnant so we had all of the necessary doctors, nurses, etc. present at delivery. I can't tell you how much of a blessing that was for us, God continues to show us his true power every day. Because Olivia was so small, she's been in a natal ICU for the past few days so she could get every ounce of proper care and so the proper tests could be run. We heard back yesterday that all of the tests turned out positive!!! So were just loving on her as much as we can and waiting for her to grow so we can take her home!


Here's a picture of Olivia sleeping soundly right after she was born. This was the first time Leslie got to see her pretty little face as she was on her way over to her current home!

Daddy
Like Leslie and Olivia, I'm doing good too. Leslie and I both continue aching to see Olivia for every single second that we can. It's nice to be over the exhaustion of the first few days and able to just spend some quality time with our little girl.

I just want to thank everyone one more time for all of the thoughts, prayers and well-wishes. They all have meant the world to us. I hope you thoughts and prayers will continue to be with us!

More to come - Chad

Olivia Makes Her Debut!!!!

I'd like to introduce the world to its newest edition, Olivia Grace Stevens! Olivia graced us with her pretty little face this afternoon at 12:40 PM. She weighed 3 lbs. 11 ozs. and was 15 whopping inches long.

Despite some of our initial worries, it looks like Olivia is perfectly healthy. She's already fussing at me and the nurses when we do things she doesn't like. I guess she takes after me in that way...sorry Les!

We haven't had a chance to spend too much time with her since she was so small, but she's doing
great.

Right now she's resting at Texas Children's
Hospital while Leslie recovers! More to come later, but Leslie and Olivia are both doing great so far! Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, keep them coming!

Chad

Olivia's Nursery

We have had a lot of fun putting together Olivia's nursery, and it is now completely ready for her arrival. (Well, one would hope so, seeing as she'll be here in just 3 days!) Here are a few pics of the room:


Notice the cute butterflies hanging from the ceiling--Chad actually not only hung these up perfectly, but he also picked them out himself shortly after we found out we were having a little girl! (sorry, Sweetie, if any of your friends read this and razz you about your fine taste in little girls' decor, but I just had to brag on you!)


I also have to thank my good friend Kelly Hill for painting the awesome flower mural on the wall--this was her baby shower gift to us, and it was one of the most unique and thoughtful gifts we received...great job Kelly!




This is the awesome giraffe that Chad made for us to measure Olivia's growth someday. We still need to add the inch and foot marks to the tree trunk he's standing next to, and my sister Lisa (who is quite artistic) is going to paint branches and leaves on top of the trunk. I love it!

The Waiting Game...

So I finally got around to creating a Blog, as I really wanted us to have a good place to let everyone know once our little girl is born, to post endless pictures of her, talk about every single little adorable thing she does, etc...you know, standard new parent stuff. Hopefully I'm as good about maintaining this site as some of my other internet-savvy mommy friends are!

We are just in hurry up and wait mode now, as the big countdown to our daughter's birth continues...Only 3 more days from now! I will give birth via c-section on Monday, July 20, at noon, and I have to admit that I do really like the idea of having it all planned out like this...no wondering if I'm going into labor, trying to time the contractions, figuring out when to go to the hospital, etc. Now if only our little girl decides to comply with the plans and wait till Monday! (As far as our doctor can tell, she doesn't seem to be in any rush to leave Mommy's tummy, so that's good.) She did finally decide to flip into the head-down position instead of the breech position she's favored over the last few weeks, so she is showing some willingness to compromise!

Since I know no one will really be reading this Blog until after she's born and we send out the website info, I can go ahead and divulge the big secret we've been keeping, which is her name. We have decided to name our little girl Olivia Grace, a name we have liked since the very beginning and eventually decided just had to be our little girl's name. I came up with a list of girl names and boy names very early on in my pregnancy, and both Chad and I always liked this one, but we still took a little time to fully commit to it. I decided that I really wanted Chad to have the final word in choosing his little princess's name, and luckily he chose the same one I really wanted! ;-) I think I knew it was just about a done deal when he came home from a business trip in May with a sweet postcard he had written to Olivia--there was no longer any question about it, Daddy had made up his mind!

So now we continue to wait anxiously for Olivia's big debut on Monday afternoon, and we will obviously update the Blog as soon as possible after she's here so we can share our happy news with everyone. As for the 3 days until then, I don't know if they'll go quickly or drag out, but what I do know is that Chad and I will have pretty much one thing on our minds, and that we're going to go out to eat and take naps as much as possible until our little girl arrives and our world is rocked!