PTH - 57 Reps for Texas Childrens!

Wow! Vic and the folks at Bayou City Crossfit really outdid themselves! I'm very proud to announce that we had well over 200 people and raised over $6,000 for Texas Children's Hospital at Olivia's fundraiser "Perseverance Through Hardship = 57 Reps for Texas Children's Hospital." The event went great, it was hot, but you should be sweating during a Crossfit WOD anyways. A big thanks to all the folks who attended and especially to the Crossfit community and Bayou City, y'all are great!

We also had a distinguished guest, Uncle Mike, from Chicago who got to meet Olivia for the first time and was my buddle buddy for the WOD, thank God too, he pulled me through it.

For those of you who weren't there, the WOD (Workout of the day) was the following, with Battle Buddy (partner)...

- 57 box jumps
- 57 push press
- 57 lunges
- 57 sit ups
- 57 squats
- 57 push ups
- 57 KB swings
- 57 burpess

Just because I said I would, I did the WOD myself a few days later in around 22 minutes. It was hell, but compared to what Olivia has gone through, it was a breeze.

Here are some pics from the event.


The guest of honor cooling off in Aunt Lisa's car!


The calm before the storm


Mike and me before the WOD


Les with Val and April watching the festivities


No comment!

Olivia's 1st Birthday! (and less than 48 hours till she gets her cochlear implant!)

One Year Down!

It's hard to believe, but Miss Olivia turned one year old on Tuesday, July 20! Where has the year gone?? It was such a great day for me and Chad to just reflect on how far we've come with Olivia over the course of this crazy, but overall wonderful, year. There have been ups and downs for sure, but I think the downs have made the ups that much sweeter. The littlest things that we probably would have taken for granted had Olivia been born totally healthy, instead give us the biggest thrills--like seeing her getting better at responding to sights and sounds, watching her continue working so hard on improving her motor skills, and melting as she shows her beautiful smile to us more and more each day! Though I know we both get bogged down at times in the day-to-day grind of everything involved in taking care of Olivia--all the therapy, doctor's visits, developmental exercises, etc.--at the end of the day we still know just how blessed we are to have her in our lives. We have learned so much over the course of this year that I don't think we would have without Olivia--we've learned to be more patient, more accepting, more loving, more determined, more optimistic even in the face of incredible challenges, and probably most importantly, more dependent on God's hand in our lives. We have no doubt that He trusted her with us for a reason, and reflecting on the past year makes me even more convinced of that. She is truly a miracle, and so that is what we celebrated on Tuesday! So enough of my waxing poetic...now let me tell you about how we actually rang in the start of Olivia's second year of life!

Chad and I both took the day off work to spend the day with Olivia, so we could just enjoy her and enjoy the significance of the day. However Miss O had quite a wild night in her Pack N Play the night before, so of course she ended up sleeping through most of her birthday. We still tried our best though, and we took her to Dave & Buster's as she had really enjoyed it when we went last weekend with my family. Fortunately she did wake up at D&B, and she seemed to have fun looking at all the crazy lights, listening to all the loud sounds, and of course riding her favorite vibrating ride again!

Daddy and Olivia riding the shaking/vibrating ride she likes so much!

We also decided to measure Olivia for the first time on her awesome giraffe measuring stick that Chad made for her way back before she was even born. She measured about 25" tall...10" longer than she was at birth!

Later in the evening Olivia's Honey, Aunt Lisa and Ian came over to our house to continue the celebration (unfortunately Papi was in Chile). Olivia continued her sleep-fest throughout most of the evening, but did finally grace us with some awake time toward the very end of the night.

In her "Birthday Princess" hat from Aunt Lisa...very carefully placed on her head so as not to wake her up...

Earlier in the day, in her cute birthday gear from Gramma Mary

Olivia's Birthday Party at School

Although Olivia played hooky from school on her actual birthday to hang out with Mom and Dad, on Friday her wonderful teachers at the Arbor School threw her an awesome party at school, which Chad and I got to crash. As you can see from the pictures, she also slept through most of this celebration...apparently Olivia was not nearly as excited about her birthday as all the rest of us! But it was still a great party and lots of fun--there was music, banging of musical instruments by all the kiddos, cupcakes, singing, and great presents!

Holding a maraca while dead asleep...


She didn't look too thrilled about the taste of chocolate ice cream Daddy gave her...(the bib reads, "It's My Party")

Cochlear Implant Surgery on Mon. July 26

In less than two days Olivia will be having her surgery to get a cochlear implant in her right ear. We are doing it at Texas Children's (of course) and are actually really looking forward to it, unlike one might with most other surgeries. But this is a surgery that we so badly wanted her to be able to have, because it will give her the best possible chance at having "normal" hearing (or as close to normal as possible). Cochlear implants are truly amazing in what they are able to do for people with severe to profound hearing loss, and they make normal speech and language possible where otherwise sign language probably would have been the only option. Though of course we have some nerves about the surgery, mostly we are just looking forward to everything we hope and believe it will do for Olivia and her quality of life, her development, etc. She already shows definite interest in sounds like our voices, music, etc., so I can only imagine all the possibilities it'll open up to her once she can hear all those sounds infinitely better and more clearly. It'll be about another month before they actually activate the implant, so that she has time to fully heal from the surgery first, so late August is about when we'll get to really start seeing what this implant can do for her, and we cannot wait. Anyway, surgery is first thing Monday morning and should take about 2 hours, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that day for everything to go smoothly and for Olivia to heal quickly and with as little pain or discomfort as possible. Our surgeon is great, and most kids bounce back within just a couple days, so we have no reason to believe she won't do great too!

Thanks to everyone for all your continued love and support!

I've Learned to Fuss, 5 days until the Big Event!

Little Olivia isn't so little any more! It's amazing how much she's grown, her feet are down to my waist when I hold her now. She's grown so much physically, and mentally. With her chromosomal deletion, we live in constant fear about what might happen over the years but when I watch her take all of those little baby steps toward being a strong, healthy, talkative, educated girl it just blows my mind. Sure, she'll be much slower than other little ones and may not live the same life as every other baby, but who cares? Leslie and I have probably worried more in the last 11 months than we have in all of the days before Olivia was born, but in the grand scheme of things all that matters is that Olivia's happy right? What happens, happens and the woman she becomes is the woman she becomes, all we can do is give her every opportunity to reach that potential, right?

If people still read this blog I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and know that we're in your prayers...the day to day grind can really get us down. We love Olivia so much and that will never change, but a parent can't help but worry about all the things they can't control! She's our little miracle, we want the best for her!!!!!

Olivia celebrated her 11 month birthday with daddy on Father's Day, what a great day it was. I spent most of the day with Olivia right next to me watching TV, at Leslie's parents or doing something great! I even got a finger painting that Olivia made with the help of her teachers at the Arbor School, it's so awesome - something only a parent would be proud of!

FUNDRAISER

We're all looking forward to Olivia's fundraiser with Bayou City Crossfit this Saturday! If you're coming, please come early (parking will be bad), bring lots of liquids to drink and something to keep you shaded and cool (it's OUTSIDE!)

Olivia's Awesome Photo Shoot

From Olivia's 6 month photo shoot!!!!! They're a little old, but we just got them in the mail and wanted to show her off! I hope this works...sometimes blogger doesn't cooperate.

T-Minus 3 Weeks Until Olivia's Fundraiser

I can't believe it's only 3 weeks away...and I'm already this fired up about Olivia's fundraiser. I spent the afternoon taking flyers for the event to local sports stores, you can find them at Luke's Locker, Tri On the Run, Finish Strong Sports and Lululemon. It's unreal how receptive Houstonians (and others) are to this cause, the overwhelming support has been awesome.

Of course, I can't thank Vic and everyone else at Bayou City for their support. If you don't have a home box, you need one! The support that comes from the CrossFit Community is unparalleled.

Leslie, Olivia and I are looking forward to the event, I hope all you competitors like burpees! I'll be competing with a great friend from college who's coming in from Chicago just for the event.

Alright, off to practice some muscle ups...yeah right.

Cochlear Implants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Stevens Family got some great news last night that we wanted to share with everyone. The Cochlear Implant Team at Texas Children's Hospital approved Olivia for cochlear implants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a HUGE development for us since Olivia's hearing is very bad right now, with little chance of improving without these implants.

We realize that there's no guarantee that her implant will "work". Work meaning that she'll have better access to sound and hopefully some day be able to talk with us! It's not an easy path and it's a long, long road with no guarantees, but at least there's a chance. Without them, we'd be learning sign language.

So we're cautiously optimistic. Olivia's surgery is schedule for Monday, July 26. She'll be 1 year and 6 days old.

We're happy to get yet another dose of good news and to see Olivia exceeding another of our preconceived "limits", "boundaries", whatever you want to call it that people have put on Olivia. She crashes through every one of those walls people try to throw in front of her! She's the strongest one in our family, if I can be 10% of her, I'd be a strong man.

Bayou City Crossfit

Vic and the folks at Bayou City CrossFit continue to amaze me! Check out their latest post on www.bayoucitycrossfit.com. Our gratitude for what they're doing for Olivia and other kids in similar situations can't be expressed with words. We hope you'll consider participating!

From Bayou City's Website

Bayou City Crossfit will be hosting a fundraiser to benefit Texas Children’s Hospital in representation of Chad Stevens’ daughter Olivia. Olivia has an extremely rare chromosomal deletion and has been in and out of the hospital for the past 10 months. She has been a fighter going to therapy 7 days a week and getting better every day. Chad’s letter to the Bayou City Crossfit Community:

Bayou City CrossFit Community,

As some of you may know, my daughter Olivia was born almost 10 months ago. Olivia’s battle against adversity started before she was born. During my wife Leslie’s pregnancy, we found out Olivia was growing slower than most babies and were referred to a series of specialists associated with Texas Children’s Hospital. As a result of those visits, we learned that Olivia really looked like a normal baby, just smaller and with a few issues that we’d need to look into after she was born.

So the big day came! Olivia was born July 20 and weighed in at 3 pounds, 11 ounces. Right away, a team of neonatologists whisked Olivia away for evaluation. She had a blocked airway and wasn’t breathing. The blockage was cleared, Olivia met mom and she went straight to the Neonatal ICU at Texas Children’s.

After that, Olivia was watched 24×7 by the staff at Texas Children’s for 57 days.

Olivia’s first few days in the NICU were trying for the entire family, but mostly for her. Olivia had complete blood work done, an MRI of her head, an ultrasound of her head, an ultrasound of her heart, an echocardiogram of her heart, an ultrasound of her abdomen, x-rays of her lungs, and complete sequencing of her chromosomes.

I was completely overwhelmed by fear. These were literally the worst moments of my life, as the doctors told us that there was a chance that Olivia had a life threatening condition that she most likely wouldn’t survive. So I waited, and cried, and waited, and cried, and prayed, and prayed, and cried, and prayed, and prayed, and waited, and cried, and waited. Then, one by one, the tests came back, mostly positive! Olivia has an extremely rare chromosomal deletion, something that wouldn’t have been diagnosable a few years ago. That condition has resulted in minor issues, but nothing life threatening.

I’d be lying if I said that since Olivia came home that things have been “normal”. She has therapy 7 times a week and we’ve been back to Texas Children’s more times that I want to admit, but Olivia is getting better every day. She will undoubtedly wear glasses and hearing aids, and have to work a lot harder than the average child to learn, but she’s a fighter. Watching her fight through all of this hardship has been life changing; it’s so amazing what this little girl’s determination has taught us.

That’s were CrossFit makes its appearance in this story. After spending countless hours in the hospital and at work, I needed something to keep me from turning into a complete bowl of Jell-O and to work off a whole lot of stress. I showed up at the box knowing that I was going to get crushed by the workouts, but knew I needed to do it too. Then it happened, I became a CF addict and the community and Bayou City CrossFit pulled me in. Everyone that works out at a great box knows what I mean.

I look at Olivia’s fight and CrossFit and see so many similarities. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been going through a WOD completely exhausted and wanting to quit, only to think about Olivia’s fight and realize how much of a baby I’m being. This concept led to the birth of an idea Vic and I had about a CrossFit Fundraiser to benefit Texas Children’s Hospital.

This event, “Perseverance Through Hardship – 57 reps for TCH” will be held Saturday, June 26 starting at 9:00A.M at the Harriet and Joe Foster YMCA (1234 W. 34th). The event will cost participants $57 per team. This will be a battle buddy WOD, two people per team. There will be three divisions: female, male, and coed. This event consists of a timed WOD (8 exercises, 57 reps each) with prizes going to the top 3 finishers in standard and scaled groups. After the WOD, we’ll have food and beverages to celebrate the event. For those not competing, a donation would be greatly appreciated to help cover the expenses of the event, with any surplus going to Texas Children’s. The event will be held at the YMCA off of 34th and Ella. To register, contact Chad at csteven1@gmail.com or Vic at vic@bayoucitycrossfit.com. More information will be given after regionals.