Olivia Passed Her Swallow Study!

This past week we took Olivia back to Texas Children's to do another swallow function study, during which a speech pathologist watches Olivia swallowing using x-ray technology, to see whether she is aspirating (allowing any of the milk/food to go down the wrong pipe) at all. She has done several swallow studies since she was born and has always aspirated, which is why she has had to eat through the G-tube in her tummy since she was about a month old. Well, this time around we were really hopeful that she would do better, as she is just getting bigger, stronger and more coordinated every day, plus she has really seemed to love all the tiny little tastes of various foods that we've given her. So we were thrilled to see that she was able to swallow both baby food and thin liquids without aspirating even once! Everyone in that room was cheering for her! So what this means is that now we can start giving her small amounts of food by mouth every day, starting off with rice cereal for babies. Chad and I are having so much fun with this, and Olivia seems to be as well! Though it will be a very gradual process, eventually she should start taking more and more food by mouth and less and less by the G-tube, until hopefully all of her daily nutrition comes from food she eats by mouth. Below are some pictures of her recent experiences with rice cereal...messy, but we don't care!



This was really huge for us, and hopefully we get some more great news next week about her oxygen...please pray that Olivia's test goes well enough next week that she is able to come off the oxygen once and for all!

Holy Moly...The Half Year Mark

It's hard to believe, but last week Olivia turned six months old -- just like everyone told us it would, it has absolutely flown by. We didn't do too much on her half-year "birthday" -- actually, she slept for a good portion of the day as she had decided to celebrate one night early and was awake in her crib almost the whole night before her birthday!

As far as what's been going on lately with Olivia...allow me to catch up a bit since it's been a while since I last posted anything...

Physical development
Olivia has been getting better and better at sitting -- now she can sit unsupported for several seconds at a time before she starts wobbling. Here she is sitting on my lap over Christmas!


As far as her growth, Olivia is finally "on the chart" for her weight! For the longest time she was below the 3rd percentile, but she is now holding steady in the 7th percentile for weight, which we are just thrilled about and her pediatrician says is great. If you take a look at her recently, you can certainly see that she's not missing any meals! She is truly her Mommy and Daddy's child...

Life on the street
Olivia has started running with some bad crowds recently -- below is a picture from when we caught her throwing her gang signs...where did we go wrong? Ha ha... ;-)


Game day
Chad and I welcomed Aunt Lisa and Ian over for the Capital One bowl game between Penn State (Chad's alma mater) and LSU (Lisa's alma mater). Here we are in our game day gear, and Chad is proud to report that Penn State did in fact win. Olivia has pretty much no option but to be a Nittany Lion fan -- that was predetermined at birth!


Commiserating with Bubba
Olivia does not love tummy time, but unfortunately we must do at least some of it every day as it's really important for eventually learning to crawl. But at least her brother Chip feels bad for her when Mommy makes her do tummy time, so here he is trying to comfort her during a recent session...doesn't he just look so sad?


Some new accessories...
Aunt Lisa gave Olivia some awesome headbands for Christmas, and we liked them so much that Chad proceeded to buy about every other color available off eBay! Also note the unicorn -- this was also a Christmas gift from Aunt Lisa, as we have decided that Olivia absolutely loves unicorns (I guess someday when she's old enough to talk she'll tell us if that is true or not!)



In other very important news (but not documented by photos), Olivia's doctor's appointments have been going really well lately. It finally seems like some of the specialist visits are starting to die off -- for example, cardiology doesn't need to see her back for a whole year and the holes in her heart are tiny at this point, and they will almost surely close up on their own with no need for intervention. This was awesome news!! We are very hopeful that she will come off her oxygen in just a couple weeks here, as she was SO close to being ready the last time they tested her. And she does another swallow study next week to see if she can start eating baby food--judging by how much she loves the little tastes of baby food we've been giving her recently, we are very hopeful about this as well! We will keep everyone posted!

Christmas and Olivia's Dedication

CHRISTMAS

Olivia's first Christmas was a good one, it was great to have all of our family together in Houston to celebrate. Leslie's mom, dad, sister and brother, along with my mom and dad spent Christmas Eve celebrating! The amount of food, especially cookies, was phenomenal...I definitely ate 10-12 dozen cookies over the past 2 weeks. My mom sure knows how to fatten me up, and I don't need any help with that.

It was so great having our entire family with us to celebrate Christmas together and our time together was made even more special by having our little girl with us. Of course, Olivia was the main attraction and was decked out in her Christmas best to celebrate Jesus's birthday.


Olivia on Christmas Eve with Grandma Honey and Papi


Olivia's new Nittany Lion shirt from Mommy


Olivia sleeping with her Night Before Christmas Bear (thanks Aunt Ann!)


Olivia with Grandma Mary


The best Christmas present ever!

Olivia's Dedication at Grace Bible Church

For me, Olivia's baby dedication was the best moment of my time with Olivia. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if the day would ever come given Olivia's prognosis at birth. The dedication was amazing, and, of course, I completely lost it when I tried to tell a small portion of Olivia's story to the congregation. I didn't really care, because Olivia is so amazing and such a fighter it was good to shed those tears. While Olivia continues to improve every single day and impress us with her strength and fortitude, her life has been challenging for both her and us. She's just so amazing that Leslie and I were SO happy to present her to God!

Like I said, I totally lost it, and I'd bet there weren't many dry eyes in the church! As always, little Olivia steals the show!