5/2 April fools! It’s already May
Olivia has continued to develop quite a personality and has started to become more engaged in playing with her toys, interacting with people, and entertaining herself. She’s really testing her vocal limits (screeching, babbling, and growling…and everywhere between) and is constantly making funny faces.
Most exciting to me is that she has started to laugh. She thinks blowing raspberries is the absolute funniest thing on earth second to blowing bubbles with her oxygen tubes.
During Easter weekend, and because Olivia was downgraded to oxygen only while sleeping and eating, we were able to get out of the house for longer stretches of time and spend time with family. We celebrated Olivia’s cousin’s 1st birthday on Saturday…
And Sunday spent time with her cousins on Kevin's side of the family.
Olivia even got to meet her great grandparents and some great aunts and uncles for the first time. She enjoyed a long stroller walk with her Grammy McVerry which gave Kevin and myself time to catch up with family. Such a wonderful weekend! Having both our families close is such a huge blessing…it will be so fun watching Olivia grow up with cousins all fairly close in age!
(Working on a better baby cousins picture.)
Oh! And we may already have a babysitter in the family…
We saw PT this month and they are so impressed with how well she is doing. In fact she won’t have to see PT again until June!
Our little nugget is now able to roll back and forth from her back to stomach. Olivia’s head control is phenomenal and we are now working toward sitting up on her own. (I propped her up for this picture).
Olivia still loves bath time but has quickly grown out of the baby sling. I really can’t wait for some consistently warm days so we can try her in a baby pool. She loves the water!
Olivia’s reflux has improved greatly from my last post. The antacid medications she is now on seem to be working. It was slow, but eventually she has gotten to eating again and better than before. By the end of April she had gained enough weight (she’s now 13.5 lbs!), that the doctor is allowing a trial of no oxygen for two weeks! We go back May 5-barring no complications and continued weight gain we may be rid of the oxygen officially before May ends. To celebrate the news we met up with one of Olivia’s primary nurses from the NICU. I just had to put a side by side comparison. The first is from April the second is from January! What a huge difference a few months have made.
We are continually reminded of how good our God is. This month I finished a Bible study I was doing with friends, and one of the lessons (Matthew 6:25-34) talked about not being anxious and how God provides. “Consider the birds, they do not sow or reap or store away food in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them”.
At the time Olivia was still dealing with really bad reflux-super fussy and barely eating. The specialized formula (in fact the only formula she tolerated since November) was on back order. I was consumed with worry-how were we going to feed our baby next week? What if she isn’t gaining weight or doesn’t eat-what then? I struggled with trusting God that He would provide and so delved into any study I could focusing on God providing. Slowly I just stopped worrying. Olivia started to tolerate a different, more readily available formula and I remember praising God for answering my prayers. And then we got a call from our case manager. We qualified for WIC, which would supply formula for the upcoming months (meaning I wouldn’t have to check online constantly, or call stores, etc) but not only that-they were able to get us the specific formula Olivia has been on. They overnighted three cans to us that day. God went above and beyond my request. We now have two formulas to alternate between. Both work for Olivia and both are able to be delivered monthly at no cost to us. I often forget that not only does God provide-but He blesses. He is outside of our imagination and what limits we place on Him. And despite my doubt and questioning He still provides and He still loves me unconditionally.
