Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone from our family to yours!  We sincerely hope everyone enjoyed this wonderful time of the year surrounded by friends and family.  We are especially grateful for friends and family this year, and even more so for the beautiful gift of God that made us parents.  We anticipate the day when we can bring our Olivia home in the new year!

We surprised our parents with a precious ornament of the photo shoot we did of Olivia (see above picture and the two below).  Her sweet nurse got very into it and even pulled Olivia's feeding tube out so we could get pictures of her without it in.  And then to our utter amazement, our little girl took so well to the bottle that within a few days of having the tube back in, it was pulled again and now she has been eating on her own for the past week or so all by the bottle.  Just another amazing step to bringing her home with us. 

Olivia says check me out taking my bottle like a champ.  She is most alert when we begin her bottle and slowly she starts to get tired and more tired until she is asleep shortly after finishing her bottle.  She is now offered 40 ml in each bottle and can drink as much as she wants, but she has to get at least 18 ml per feed or she would eventually get the feeding tube back.  (If she goes 3 or more feeds without getting 18 ml, they would put it back in).  So far, she is crushing the challenge and taking anywhere from 22 all the way up to the full 40 ml per feeding. So she is doing great with the bottle.

This past Friday, we were able to start trying to nurse.  She is a little unsure of this so far.  Without going into too much detail, she has to work a little harder to get the milk she wants (her bottle will drip it into her mouth if she does not suck enough), so she is slow to start, but has latched a few times and will work at it for a little bit.  We only get to try for about 10 minutes a day, because again the concern is that she would burn more calories trying to get her food than she would actually take in, so we are thankful for the times we get to try.  She seems to have the hang of nursing and our hope is that by the time she comes home, she will be much better at it.  Often it takes until 36 weeks gestation to get the hang of it.  Olivia is still just 34 weeks gestation, so she is again ahead of the curve, but this is a good reminder that she can take her time getting the hang of it.

The more we see of her face, the more and more people think she looks just like her daddy.  I think they are both so cute, so I am happy to be surrounded by all these sweet faces.  Marc and I are taking advantage of more snuggle time as she is still out of her isolette.  And in true Olivia fashion, she surpassed her 4 pound goal and she is now 4 pounds 5 ounces!  Dad is so happy about her 4 pound goal too:

It is really crazy to think that she is over a month old and was still supposed to be in my belly for the next 8ish weeks.  So we are really loving the early snuggles and anticipating the day when she gets to come home. But also super scared about that most likely being right in the middle of cold and flu season with a baby that has basically no immune system.  Marc and I are trying our best to wash hands diligently and stay well through this season of colds, as we know if either of us is sick, it means a hiatus from seeing our sweet baby girl.  If the NICU has taught us anything, it is definitely the importance of hand washing (since we have to do it for 3 minutes each time we go to see her).  hehe

And just like that, we have a one month old!

So, for the past 5 or so days, I have had a note on my phone to do a blog update, and I just have not had the time.  But I know so many people follow this, so I am hoping to get this up today.  We have hit a few milestones, since my last post a week ago.  Big news, we have a one month old daughter (and in true mom fashion, I am a few days late letting everyone know!).

Since I am loving bullet points, let's go that route:

* Olivia continues to be off CPAP and her lungs seem to be functioning great, way less dips, which is great news.

* Olivia turned 4 weeks old on Saturday, December 16th

* Then a few days later, hit her one month birthday (funny how that works out) on Monday, December 18th, we brought cupcakes to her nurses to celebrate!

1 month old!

* Olivia has been doing well with her bottle feeds.  She started with only taking about 8 mL per feed then would get the rest from her feeding tube.  But she is now doing about 20 mL to her full bottle, which is 32 mL, each time it is offered (which is about every other feed).  Mom and Dad have both got to feed her too, which is fun!

I love bottle time and snuggles with Dad!

* Why does she not get a bottle every feed?  At her age, she can actually burn more calories than she needs to, so right now, it is just offered about 3-4 times a day.  As she gets older and gets the hang of it, we will move to more frequent feedings with the bottle and then eventually try nursing.

* She is now 33 weeks gestation and if you read the last post, you can see the strides she has made in just one week.

Check out me in this outfit last post, look how much better I fill it out now!

* Olivia moved to an open crib yesterday, so no more isolette.  She is doing a good enough job regulating her body temperature that they moved her to a crib with no top.  She does get double the blankets swaddled around her now though, just to give her some help and a snazzy hat on all the time.

Check out my new Crib!

* Starting today, Olivia is off caffeine as well, this is often given to preemie babies to help stimulate lung and brain function.  As she continued to grow, they kept her level the same (so she would eventually outgrown the dosage) and it was determined that she did not need it anymore, so she will now no longer get it.

* Her MRSA culture remains negative!  YAY

Big Miracles, Small Package, thanks for the onesie "Auntie" Sara!

* She did have a clot near her heart, which showed up on her ECHO, but her second ECHO showed no change in the size of it.  The doctors all say clots near the heart of babies are common and most absorb them on their own.  However, since she had the infection, their fear is that some bacteria got into the clot, so just to be on safe the side, they are continuing her antibiotics for a total of 6 weeks from the negative culture (which was pulled on December 7th), so assuming everything stays the same, she should go off antibiotics around January 18th.  Thus, she will not be home before that date, at which point she will be around 37 weeks gestation (or a few days after).

* Big News, she is nearing 4 pounds now!  She is hoovering right on the edge so we are hoping by Christmas she hits that milestone!

Christmas hat was made by one of the nurses grandma's--how precious!

Milk Coma!  She is happiest after she eats, she sure gets this honestly from both mom and dad!

We so appreciate all the prayers still, we have been so blessed with meals, gifts, gift cards, love and support from so many people and we go to bed every night realizing how blessed we are with so many great friends and family around to support us!  So thank you all!

32 weeks

First things first, I have updated the URL for the blog, so if you have bookmarked the page, please make sure to update it.  It is actually slightly easier to remember now: https://schinkelfamily.blogspot.com/

Now that that is out of the way, our little girl is 32 weeks gestation as of yesterday.  This is a milestone for an important reason and that is that starting at 32 weeks gestation, babies begin to develop the ability to not only suck (which she has been doing for weeks), but also swallow.  So that means that she can beginning attempting food from bottles or breast versus just her feeding tube.  This is sort of touch and go from 32-34 weeks, when it should be fully developed.  But we got to watch her nurse yesterday feed her 12 ml of breast milk from her bottle and it was awesome to see her drink it down well.  So hopefully she will continue to do that and we can keep adding to her bottle feds so she can hopefully have the tube removed in the next two weeks sometime.  (Note: people are always asking us for pictures of her in relation to something else to get a perspective of her size, I think these are a good reference, knowing that our nurse that is feeding her is a lady of normal size, so those hands are a woman's hands).

Even little babies get burped

Since the last post a lot has happened, so let's do a few bullet points:
* After the last post (which went up on Saturday), she went back on CPAP on Sunday and stopped regulating her temperature, so she was given a break from both for a day.
* Then on Monday we came back and she was back off CPAP again (and has remained off the last two days), and they have started trying her again to regulate her body temperature
* Her body temperature regulation is a milestone that she really should not hit until closer to 4 pounds, so we fully intend to have some up and down days with this one (the best way to tell where she is with that is with the pictures, if she has clothes on, then she is attempting to regulate her own body temperature, when she just has a diaper on then the isolette is regulating the temperature for her)

Our little diva with her hands all over the place saying please mom and dad, don't take my picture!

Look at my cute outfit!  This outfit is a preemie outfit and still a little big on her!

* She is up to 3 pounds 6 oz.  She was there on Monday, but had some swelling from the antibiotics, so they gave her a diuretic to reduce the fluid and thus the swelling, when they did that she lost about 2 ounces yesterday, but then gained it right back in a day, so we are pleased with that.
* She seems to be gaining weight at a rate of anywhere from 0.8 ounces to 2 ounces each day, so she is doing awesome!
* Olivia is up to 28 mL feedings per session (every 3 hours), this is almost a full ounce of breast milk and she gets it about 8 times a day.
* BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK: Her culture that was drawn went the full 5 days without growth, so they officially consider her to be infection free; however, they watch it and treat for at least another 9 days (maybe longer). But we are very thankful to see her moving in the right direction.
* I will leave you with my favorite pictures, the mommy snuggles 💜💜

"Are you my Mother"

Happy 3 weeks, Olivia!

For 21 days now, I have been a mom; this is CRAZY!  How is our sweet baby 3 weeks already?  To celebrate her 3 weeks of life, she finally passed her three pound mark and then decided she should fly right past it, so she is now up to 3lbs 4 oz. (or exactly 1 pound more than her birth weight).  Which means that in 3 short weeks our little girl has grown by 40%, INSANE!  If you read my last post you know that they found growth on her culture after the 48 hour mark, which we later found out was actually at hour 64, so though it is not great, it is much better than the first culture on antibiotics which showed growth after 19 hours, so we are considering it a win still.  It seems it is still the MRSA and it is just taking her body a little time to get rid of it, but her other progress is very promising, in that, her actions, other labs and overall personality is much better so they are continuing to treat as is and will continue on the antibiotics for the 14 days after the negative culture still (which we hope will be soon).  Her Echo did not show anything abnormal, per say, there was a shadow on one of the films, which is likely just a problem with the scan, so they may do another echo in a few days just to be sure.  In other news, Olivia is still off CPAP and has been for days now so that is really good progress.  She also is having less and less drops, which is great news.  And as of Friday, she is now sporting clothes because they are trying to see if she can regulate her own body temperature in her isolette.  So overall, we have enjoyed a week of good progress.

And because we love milestones, here are some fun ones:

Dad gets to take Olivia's temperature for the first time!

Dad changing her diaper for the first time (and since she pooped not long after, he got to change it for the second time too!)

More mommy snuggles!

Look at me, in clothes!  Trying to keep my body warm enough :)

And not to be outdone by all of Olivia's progress, the weather decided to make her 3 week birthday special and Olivia already got to have her first snowfall (on December 8th in Richmond--this really never happens)....

Lastly, I was lucky enough to be showered with love and support today by family and some friends as my mom and sister hosted a baby shower for me.  So we have spent the evening unpacking some fun gifts in Olivia's nursery.  It makes it so much more exciting for the day when she gets to come home and be in her new room!

As always we are thankful for the love, support and prayers from all over.  Please keep them coming, we know this is a marathon and we may encounter more hurdles before we bring her home, but we are praising God in the good and are ever more hopeful for the future. 💜

Happy Thursday!

Just a quick update, we heard last night that her 48 hour culture had growth on it, so they are trying to figure out if it is the same or a new infection, we should know more details tonight.  Also, just to be safe, they are doing an Echo (a sonogram of Olivia's heart) to make sure there is not bacteria near her heart.  This is pretty easy procedure, I actually had one while I was in the hospital too.  So we anticipate those results this afternoon/evening.  But our girl is still looking good and continues to surprise us with her fight, beauty, and spirit.  💜

31 weeks + 1 day

I fully intended to write yesterday about the fact that Olivia was 31 weeks gestation, but time seems to literally fly by these days between work, visiting Olivia, and keeping up with day to day stuff, it is hard to find extra time in there, so this is a day late (hopefully not a dollar short)! 

Anyway, news on the Olivia front, let's do bullet points:

* Our baby girl is inching closer to 3lbs everyday and I think she might get there tomorrow (no promises though).  She weight in today at 2lbs 15.3 ounces.  So we are excited that she continues to gain weight!

* Olivia is back up to full feeds (which for her is 22 ml every 3 hours) and she seems to be tolerating it well!

* Olivia has been off her CPAP for over 2 days now, which means that our baby girl is fully breathing on her own!

Oh hey, check out my cute nose without my CPAP!

* She does continue to have little dips here and there, however, every time the last day or two, she has been able to bring herself back from it without any stimulation from the nurses, so that is a good sign.

* Best news of the week: her MRSA culture taken at 2am on Monday morning continues to show negative readings, so it seems the infection has been caught and cleared.  They monitor for 5 days but general after 24-36 hours of no positives, that is a good sign.

* Since her culture was negative at the 36 hour point, they were able to put the PICC line in yesterday so no more scalp IV's for now!  YAAAY this also means that she will be able to get her antibiotics through that line and hopefully wont have to have any additional IVs for awhile.

Yay no more IVs hopefully :)

* Her antibiotics will still continue for the next 10-14 days to ensure the infection is fully gone.

* Momma got to finally do kangaroo time with her yesterday after a week of not holding her:

That is one happy Momma!

Snuggle Bug!

We continue to try to remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint, but we are for sure praising God with the good news of this week.  Please continue to pray with us that the antibiotics would continue to do their job and that she would stay infection-free, that she continues to grow and put on weight, and that her breathing continues to remain good.  Many many thanks for all the love and support once again, this is a journey we could not walk alone and thanks to all of yall, we are not having to :)

Olivia Update & NICU FAQs

Olivia is holding steady today and yesterday, doing about the same as she did Saturday.  We spoke with one of her doctors today who is hopeful that her next culture will come back negative and then they will be able to insert the picc line and have a better time frame for the number of days she will be on antibiotics.  So that was all positive.  She was having a few dips Sunday, but she is like her momma and she is just sick and tired of being sick and tired.  She also had to have her IV inserted in a different spot and they chose her scalp (which I am glad I knew of before we went in to see her, cause that is really hard to see).

You can see the scalp IV in this picture.

Eyes Open!

Our little Olivia is also known for how much she loves playing with her wires, tubes, etc.  I got a few great pictures today as an example.  This is why they call her Handsy :)

I figured now would be a good time to address some questions we get asked a lot, so far on this journey for any wondering minds...

Q. When will Olivia come home?
A. We actually do not know the answer to this exactly but have a better idea than most everyone, so allow me to enlighten you all.  Olivia will have to meet a number of milestones before she is allowed to come home, the first of those being that she must be 35 weeks old (from conception).  So she will turn 35 weeks on January 2nd, so we know she will not be home before that.  However, they also say to expect her home around her due date (which is February 6th), and anything before would be a bonus.  So in our minds, we are hopefully she will be home sometime between January 2nd and February 6th.  However, having read a number of other NICU baby stories, I also know that it can be after her due date just depending on how she is doing.  So we are hopefully to have her home by February 6th but know it could be earlier or later.

Q. How big is Olivia?
A. Olivia continues to grow daily weight-wise.  They take her weight almost daily (for awhile she was in an isolette that did not weigh her so they gave her a days break in there).  She currently weighs just under 3lbs, so she is up almost 12 oz from her birth weight (or 30% from her birth weight!!!).  Her length at birth was 14.5 inches and we do not have an updated length measurement.

Q. What are the NICU rules?
A. The rules for Olivia vary based on how she is doing.  The overall rules allow two adults in to see her at a time, with one of those having to be her parent.  So although we would love for everyone to come meet her in the NICU, it does limit time that mom, dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles are allowed in.  She can have up to 4 adult visitors a day.  Each person coming in has to scrub their hands and arms (up to the elbow) for 3 minutes with soap and hot water.  Then they have to put on a gown and wear a mask if they have not yet had a flu shot.  No one is allowed in when they are sick.  However, since Olivia is currently fighting an infection, the only people allowed in to see her currently are mom and dad.  In addition to normal protocol, we have to also wear gloves and have to change gloves any time we touch her.

Q. Why are there such crazy rules for going into the NICU?
A. Olivia, like many babies in the NICU was born before she was fully developed and she does not have the immune system that we have and she does not even have the immune system of a full term baby.  So she is extra sensitive and will continue to be extra sensitive even when she comes home, so we will probably be extra cautious with guests and visitors whenever she does come home for the first few months.

Q. How long will she stay in the isolette?
A. Olivia will stay in her isolette until she can regulate her own body temperature, which we have been told occurs around 4 lbs.

Q. How often do you get to hold her?
A. As Olivia is currently fighting an infection, we do not get to hold her, however before she was sick, we were able to hold her almost every day (as she tolerates it) for about an hour, this is called Kangaroo Care, and she would be skin to skin against either her dad or myself (we would alternate so she could get to know us both).  I would say, not being able to hold her is one of the things that is hardest for me.  You expect to have a baby that you can snuggle and get to know through touch and smell and so not being able to do that is a hard one for me!

Any other questions?  Feel free to ask, we are happy to answer any questions we can and I will try to do another FAQs at some point with any questions yall have!

Happy 2 weeks old, Olivia!

It is so hard to believe that two weeks ago, we were living out Olivia's birth story.  I find it hard to believe that it has already been two weeks, but then again, I feel like those two weeks have also dragged on.  Is this what parenthood is like?  I would wager that it is--this is why they say the days are long but the years are short!

Since I am sure everyone is curious.  Olivia is doing much better, we are not fully out of the woods yet, but it seems the antibiotics are doing their job and she is on the road to recovery.  Her meningitis test came back negative, so we are very thankful for that.  However, her MRSA culture still gave a positive result, this time 19 hours from when the culture was taken.  This is actually a somewhat good sign.  The longer it takes the culture to come back positive the better (if it has to come back positive at all).  We are still hoping the next culture will be negative, but we are taking all the good news we can get.

Olivia is also up a little more weight wise today too.  She is up to 2lbs, 10.5 oz (again her birth weight was 2lbs, 4 oz), so she is still gaining weight which is great!  And she is back to 21% oxygen, which is also good, she is still on the CPAP but again just to assist with her breathing at current air levels.  She has not been having as many drops and when she does, she tends to bring herself back on her own without assistance from the nurses so that is also positive movement. 

Her next hurdles are to fight off this infection, she needs to get a negative result, so they can start a picc line, which will allow for easier distribution of the antibiotics but they cannot do it while she is still fighting an infection.  So as you can see in some of the pictures, she has an IV in her hand.  And she needs to continue to gain weight.  But to say we are pleased with her success the last two days is an understatement.  This tiny little girl continues to impress her dad and I daily with her fight!  We so appreciate all the thoughts, texts, calls, Facebook messages, gifts, dinners, etc.  We know how blessed we are to have the community that we have; so thank you to each and every one of you!  We appreciate the continued prayers and support as we know we still have a long road ahead of us!

There is a reason all the nurses call me 'Handsy' cause I am always doing something with my hands!

Learning sucking skills by using my pacifier

Looking like Dad sucking on my finger.  

A smile!!!  This is also a good picture of my IV line on my left hand (notice the splint thing to make sure I dont mess with it)

Holding my Momma's hand.  

Two steps forward, one step back!

Everyone told us this journey would be two steps forward and one step back, but it was so hard to believe with all the great forward movement she was making.  Then this week, she went back on CPAP and Marc and I were like, well here is one of her steps back.  Well our little Olivia certainly adds the drama to our life already at such a young age.  I got a call yesterday (Wednesday) morning from the NICU while I was in the shower, asking that I call them back.  Apparently overnight Olivia had more of those breathing/heart rate drops (Dcells), so the nurse on duty decided to take a culture to see if there was an infection.  As is routine, before the culture even came back they started her on antibiotics just to be safe and by mid-afternoon we found out that she did in fact have an infection and she is testing positive for MRSA.  In addition to that, they were going to perform a spinal tap on her to see if she has meningitis too.  Needless to say, my momma heart sank and I spent the better part of yesterday morning crying (this is certainly my new reality--pregnancy hormones have made me a quick crier, which is quite the change from my 1-2 times a year cry before I was pregnant).  I was scared for our little girl, for the spinal tap (aren't those supposed to hurt?), and for knowing if this course of treatment would work. 

By the time I made it to the hospital yesterday, they had a bunch of new information for me.  They had performed the spinal tap and Olivia did great (they give her sugar water--"sweeties" and she loved that), so that was good to hear.  That gets sent off for cultures so we wont know for sure for a few days, but her white blood count was elevated so they went ahead and treated for it just to be safe.  In addition she is getting antibiotics for the MRSA and they upped her oxygen to give her a little break.  She slept the better part of yesterday so each time we saw her she was sleeping or very groggy, not her usual feisty self so you could tell she was not feeling well.

To say we are thankful for all her wonderful nurses is an understatement, her night nurse that caught the infection even called in during her day off to check in our on little baby and we were able to make it back to the hospital after shift change last night to officially meet her for the first time.  And today when Marc checked in, two of her day nurses were there and one of them requested Olivia specifically, so we know she is greatly loved and cared for there.

In good news (cause even in the bad, it is not all bad), Olivia's brain scan came back showing no bleeds!  She will have another one around the 30 day mark but this is good news and we are thankful for it!  Also she was up 1.3 ounces from the day before, so she continued to put on some weight (however, they did limit her feed yesterday so that may cause a small delay in weight gain).  But we will take the good news where we can!

Snoozing away!

We hope that you will continue with us in prayer for these antibiotics to continue to work and for her healing.  That she would continue to grow and put on weight and that (if we be so bold) this would be her only major set back through this journey.  Thank you all for the love and support!  💜

Olivia is 30 weeks today

We hit two exciting milestones today:

1. Olivia turned 30 weeks gestation today!
2. I had my first post-op appointment and my doctor was pleased with my BP numbers and told me come Saturday, I could drive again and can resume most normal activity! 

Here is where we have come in the past 10 days, since Olivia's birth:

* She started at 38% oxygen on CPAP and as of today is down to somewhere between 21-25% (21% is what we breath).  She is struggling to continually breath so she gave her mom quite the scare today with her alarm bells going off every few minutes.  But she is correcting herself and starting to breath again, which her nurses say is normal for her age.  We always hear, "remember: she is not supposed to be having to do this at her age."  These reminders are great for a momma's heart to hear.

* She started at 2.5ml worth of breast milk per feeding and is now up to 22ml per feeding.  Her feedings occur every 3 hours and she is tolerating it well.  The additional feedings will help her continue to put on weight and grow--which is her main objective now.

* Her birth weight was 2 lbs 4 ounces and as of today she is up to 2 lbs 7.3 ounces.  So she is certainly making strides to gain weight!

* I (momma) got to help with a diaper change on Sunday, as well as, take her temperature and wipe her sweet little mouth (she has a tendency to droll out milk after her feedings)

* And because everyone loves a good poop story--Olivia has been producing her fair share of waste as well.  It took her a few days to poop, but she finally came around and she is keeping things regular--which is a good sign of things working well internally too! 💩

Overall, we are so very pleased with her progress and we absolutely love all her nurses.  NICU nurses are the best (in my opinion), they are so amazing with her and it is obvious how much they all love what they do.

Side note: I am totally obsessed with her hands, she is always fidgeting with things (she gets that honestly from me), but its so adorable to see her simple movements:

Our newest Adventure--Welcome to the world, Olivia!

As many of our close friends and family know, we have had a whirlwind in the last two weeks, but let's start a few months back.  On June 4th, we found out that we were expecting with a due date of February 6, 2018.  After 20 loooong weeks, we found out our new little bundle of joy would be a girl and thus the pink clothes started rolling in.  I had a very normal pregnancy from the beginning to week 24.  All of our appointments went well, I had morning sickness that would not go away, and could feel our sweet little girl moving about inside me.

So that makes my 28 week appointment all the more scary.  I went in on Tuesday, November 14th for my normal 28 week appointment expecting to stay just about 15 minutes for the urine test, blood pressure check and heart tones.  Well two out of three checked out fine, but my blood pressure was elevated and would not go down.  My doctor thought it would be best to admit me and keep checks on it, not a big deal but slightly scary.  I drove myself to the hospital in my everyday clothes and now I was looking at spending the night.  I called Marc and he left work to meet up with me, the emotional wreck that I was.  For the next two days I was put on various medicines to regulate the BP and things looked good, my numbers were getting under control, I had come in with normal ranges for the urine test (which means it was not preeclampsia at the time).  So we were possible looking at gestational hypertension and maybe 6 weeks in the hospital but manageable, right?  My spirits were up, things were looking good, I was going to keep baby girl inside to cook a little more.  Well over the next few days, things went from bad to good to bad once again and by Thursday I was getting two steroid shots for baby girl's lung development, just in case they had to deliver early (precautionary but still looking like she could stay in for awhile).  Then on Friday, things went downhill and fast. My BP numbers were no longer stable and my doctor was chasing the numbers with meds.  Saturday morning started with more BP anxiety and finally after ordering my breakfast, a nurse came in and said "Don't eat that!"  Though I did not want to jump to conclusions, I knew what that likely meant--I could not eat because I would be having our baby that day. The doctor came in about 30 minutes later and informed me that my overnight urine test came back with hugely elevated numbers and I was now considered as having preeclampsia and all signs pointed to delivery that day.  We had had a bedside ultrasound on Friday that showed that my fluid levels were borderline low and the placenta did not seem to be functioning correctly.  So it was decided that I would have a scheduled C-section at 2pm on Saturday, 11/18.  With our hearts full of every emotion in the world, we realized our baby girl would be arrive that day!

Needless to say Saturday was quite a blur to me.  Because of the early delivery, I was put on a magnesium sulfate drip to help with baby girl's brain development.  This is a 24 hour treatment and makes you very very sleepy.  Around 2pm that day I was rolled into the OR to start the epidural so I could be awake for the C-section, which also meant Marc could be in there too!  Interestingly enough, the process is much longer than on TV.  They started the epidural and I got very light headed and almost passed out, so the process took longer for me cause I was laying down versus sitting up.  But everything was finally in place, Marc was in the delivery room and we were ready to become parents (as ready as anyone can be at 28 weeks, 4 days into the pregnancy).  And at exactly 2:53pm on November 18th, our daughter made her way into the world with the sweetest little cry (they had warned us, she likely would not make any noise cause her lungs were not fully developed). She came out fighting at a robust 2 pounds 4 ounces and we were even able to grab a family photo and a sweet kiss on the forehead before they took her to NICU.

Welcome to the world Olivia Violet! We could not be happier to be your parents 😍

Unfortunately the drama for me, did not stop there.  I was kept on the magnesium sulfate drip for the rest of that day and into Sunday, so I was in and out of sleepiness with blood pressure checks on the hour all night and day.  Nothing like hourly blood pressure checks and lack of quality sleep to get your blood pressure under control!!!  On Sunday, my blood pressure was still going all over the place and the nurses and my doctor had me concerned saying things like "Delivery should have solved this."  And then I get the news that my kidneys are not functioning as they should be, so once again, anxiety creeps back in.  Meanwhile, I just wanted to go see our daughter, but I was not allowed until I was off the drip and sans catheter, which did not occur until after 5pm on Sunday, November 19th, this was definitely the hardest 24+ hours of my life, knowing I am a mom but not getting to see or hold my baby girl (this was not how I imagined birth would be--but that quickly became a theme--we did not plan for things to go this way, but this is how they were going).  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were all quite emotional days for me, still fighting the BP numbers (I felt fine physically, but my numbers were crazy high!).  I quickly got used to the nurses asking every shift change if I had bad headaches, blurred vision or pain where my liver was, all signs of high blood pressure/stroke levels.  And each time, my answer was no.  I felt fine physically, I was just ready to be out of the hospital and the frequent blood pressure checks were doing nothing to help the numbers go down.  On Monday into Tuesday, we got the news that my kidney function was returning to normal and then Tuesday into Wednesday, I finally had my last blood test to verify again that my liver was functioning as it should be.  On Wednesday, I had an appointment with the cardiologist and then a follow up Echo and EKG to verify that my heart was functioning as it should (and thank goodness, it was too).  And finally after 8 days in the hospital, I was released Wednesday night (November 22) about 6:30pm, I cried when they told me the news!  One night of wonderful sleep in my home was just what I needed.  My blood pressure numbers have stabilized since I have been home and more rested (still currently on the meds from the doctors), but I am hopefully that over the next few weeks/months, my body will return to normal and I can eventually ween off the medicines.

Our little Olivia continues to amaze both Marc and myself with her fight and tenacity.  She was back up to her birth weight on day 6 of her life.  This was amazing cause we had heard it would take anywhere from 7-10 days.  She is currently breathing oxygen at the same rate we would and uses CPAP on and off for help when needed.  Thankfully she has never had to be on a ventilator!  Her feedings have increased from 2.5ml the first day to 15 ml now and she gets fed every 3 hours from my breast milk which we are able to bring to her in the NICU!  She is the happiest right after her feedings. She still has a feeding tube and we hear that might be the case for weeks even, as babies do not often develop the ability to swallow until sometime after 32 weeks, at which point we will be able to try a bottle. 

Mommy & Olivia Skin to Skin time

Mommy gets to take my temperature for the first time!

Little Miss Hands--she is always moving her hands around!

She will have a routine MRI on Wednesday of this week to check for brain bleeds, so we ask for prayers that everything will look good with that.  The doctors and nurses have no cause for concern; this is a standard procedure for all NICU babies. We have no doubt the next few months will be full of every emotion under the sun as we figure out life as first time parents to a baby we cannot yet bring home, but have so appreciated all the love, support, thoughts, and prayers from friends, family and the community at large.  We certainly feel all the support from everyone.  My hope is to update this blog regularly with progress reports, so please subscribe via email for the latest updates!

Much Love,
Laura, Marc & Olivia

Let's travel around the world in one post!

Well not quite but it felt that way.  Earlier this year, Marc and I had discussed the idea of taking a trip to Europe and within a few weeks, he had found the deal of all deals for a roundtrip flight from Richmond to Amsterdam.  Within a few hours, flights were booked with no other thoughts in mind.  From then until April, we diligently made plans of where to go, what to see, where to stay, and how to get from point A to B, B to C, C to D and so on.  All the planning finally paid off a few weeks ago when we left for Europe on a whirlwind adventure.  

Here we are as we sit in the airport ready to go (look at the smiles, I was so naive to "sleeping on a plane"--spoiler, it does not happen well!)

We arrived in Amsterdam at about 7am (aka 1am East Coast Time) and surprise the hotel was not ready, so we started on our own city walking tour, canal tour of the city and went to Heineken Experience until about 2pm when we could finally get into the room (and Nap)!

Pretty Canals all over the city!

Flowers EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam!

Our front end trip to Amsterdam was short lived, we spent just one night before we were up the next day and headed to Brussels, Belgium for a day and night in that city.  My sister had suggested two things in Brussels....

Belgium waffles with Ice Cream

It was as delicious as it looks, take that back, it was better than it looks!

and to see the Manneken Pis statue (yes, we were slightly underwhelmed at this tiny little guy):

Grand Place in Brussels

After looking at the beautiful Grand Palace and having a delicious dinner, we headed back to the room for an early bedtime, two countries in two days was already wearing us out and we were headed to Paris the next day.  So we were up early, on yet another train to get to Paris.  When we arrived, we were able to go right to our room, drop off our luggage and then we decided to do the Hop on, Hop off city bus tour (I highly recommend these as a way to see the whole city and all the popular spots, however, do not expect to get there quickly, the whole route can take anywhere from 1-2.5 hours depending on the route you pick).  We decided to hop off at Sacre-Coeur Basilica and go up the millions, okay maybe hundreds of steps to see it up close and personal!

We finished our tour by Moulin Rouge and made it back to city central where we enjoyed a Nutella Crepe along the Champs Elysees!

By now, we are already at Tuesday (having left Richmond on Friday), we had big plans to go up the Eiffel Tower:

But to do that, it meant fueling up with more carbs, seriously, how do people in Paris stay so thin??

After two days in Paris, we were off again, this time to London!  We took the train (went under water!!) and arrived safely at the station, lucky for us we were able to read the underground map (cause English and all), so we were able to easily hop on to get to our hotel, where we dropped off our bags and did a little sight-seeing.  We stumbling upon Buckingham Palace right at the time of the changing of the guards so it was VERY crowded! We then found our way to St. James Park and enjoyed a lovely stroll through there.  This was the day we unmistakably walked 35,000 steps and I got a new badge on my FitBit, SCORE!  After a promise to Marc the day before, I said don't worry all this traveling will be worth it cause we can sleep in tomorrow, I forgot that I had booked us for a Day trip to Highclere Castle (of Downton Abbey fame) and we had to meet up at 7:30 am, which meant we were awake once again before 7 on VACATION!

But in my opinion, it was sooooooooo worth it!  Just look at that smile:

It was so surreal being at Downton Abbey, seeing the grand staircase, the dinning room, the library, etc. I was totally geeking out and Marc was all like "What did I marry into?"

Pictures were not allowed inside the house, so there are none of those to show, but we got plenty of time to tour it and the property and the tour we were on then made two more stops at the nearby village where a lot of the scenes were filmed (including the church used for weddings and funerals in the show) and then our last stop was at the adorable farm used for filming all those spots with Daisy's father-in-laws farm!  After our FULL day of Downton Abbey (all day Thursday), we finally got to sleep in on Friday and then made our way over to the London Eye and a bunch of our touristy sights including another hop on/hop off Bus tour to Harrod's (super overwhleming), Picadilly Circus, etc.  I managed to get us lost again walking back to our hotel, I think Marc has finally learned to not let me try to direct--no worries, I always get us back, it just often takes about 10,000 extra steps. And we ended our day with a boat tour of the city and a preview our Saturday's adventure with the Tower Bridge:

Saturday, we were up relatively early for our last day in London (we had a flight that evening), so we left our room and checked our bags at the hotel then headed over to The Tower of London, where we enjoyed a bunch of history about torture methods, where prisoners (mostly of treason) were kept, and got to see the queen's crown jewels!  In addition, we saw a bunch of armour, as I model below:

Our Saturday ended with an overcrowed Underground ride to the airport before boarding a plane for Dusseldorf, Germany, were we got in late about 10:30pm and waiting for Marc's parents, who were coming from Rome to meet up with us before renting a car and heading to Marc's great aunt and uncle's house.  By the time we got to their house it was already almost midnight and we were exhausted, but that did not seem to matter and after about two hours of talking and catching up, we were finally in bed for the night.  We woke up on Easter Sunday to a lovely breakfast and adorable chocolate bunnies, a lamb cake and so many other cute Easter things, it was a nice reminder of why its fun to spend the holidays with family!

We spent Sunday night and had a nice breakfast Monday morning with Marc's family, before we were once again on the road, this time in a rental car (If you are keeping track, so far we have used planes, trains, buses, and boats to get around, so a car was something new).  We stopped at a rest stop along the way that had a checkpoint from decades ago when you had to pass through when coming from West Germany to East Germany.  There is just so much history in this part of the trip, it was hard to remember all the details, but it was an interesting point to stop at and Marc's mom was able to remember some of this from her time there, she said she never had to go through it, but it was a big deal and people avoided it if they could because of the time involved, etc.

After arriving in Berlin later that afternoon, it was about 6.5 hours including our stops to Berlin, we dropped off the car and our bags at our hotel and decided to explore all we could while it was still light outside.  By the way, in case I have not said it yet, if you are planning a trip to Europe, I highly recommend going during the spring, you get sunlight until almost 8pm so it allows more time for sightseeing along the way.

Reichstag Building

Brandenburg Gate

Mr. & Mrs. Berlin

Ampelmannchen (Literally translate to little light traffic man), these are on the cross walks and in Berlin the traffic lights that have these were in former East Berlin, while the cross walks in West Berlin did not have them.  It is an interesting piece of history still left from the days of the Berlin Wall, but now more of a city icon.

On our first full day in Berlin, the weather was calling for rain, so we decided we would plan to go to the concentration camp the next day and attempt to spend more of the day indoors, so we first went to Charlottenburg Palace, the home of King Fredrick of Prussia.  The beautiful architecture was amazing to see and we were able to go in many rooms of the house with an English guided audio tour for only about $12 a person, so I would highly recommend this (the $12 includes three other buildings on site which we will get to in a moment and also one photographer pass--which I got to be):

Inside Charlottenburg

The biggest appeal of the tour was that Karl Friedrich Schinkel was the architect of one of the house on property (as well as a number of the pieces of furniture inside the houses):

House that Schinkel Built

After leaving Charlottenburg, we had the afternoon free to explore the city some more and ended up finding another building Schinkel designed, a church called Friedrichswerder Church, which is now under construction and is actually no longer used as a church, but rather a gallery and was closed during the construction so we could not go inside.

We ended the day with a walk by a part of the Berlin Wall still standing and seeing Checkpoint Charlie.

 Since the weather was supposed to be raining on Tuesday (it never rained), we postponed our trip to the concentration camp until Wednesday, which ended up being a day full of freezing temperatures and SNOW!  But we headed on anyway since it was the last day we were going to be in Berlin, Sachsenhausen Concentraion Camp is located just about 45 minutes outside Berlin.  Because of its close proximity to the central area of the Nazi party, Berlin, this camp was often used as the model camp for videos and brochures the Nazi's used to show the "great" conditions of the camp.  As is clear now, only a few areas were in those "nicer" conditions while torture and death were still a daily part of the life at Sachsenhausen.  This camp was mostly used for political prisoners, And once the camps were liberated, the Soviets took over and continued to use it as a concentration camp for years following the end of the war, so many of the buildings were destroyed to hide what was done during the Nazi occupation.

Art that is on display now that the camp is a museum

the outline of the old prisioners cells

guard tower

the medical area, which seemed to cause more harm than helping with all kinds of medical experimentation happening here. 

Sachensausen, though hard to see, was a harsh look into the evil that can be present, so I highly recommend a stop there if you can manage, maybe try to avoid the snowy days as it gets very cold.  

After driving back to Berlin, the weather started clearing up and we got back about 4pm, since the Berlin Zoo was a short walk from our hotel, we decided to head over there for the rest of the day.  We mostly had the zoo to ourselves and many of the animals were inside but we still got plenty of time to see some of them. 

Elephants

Sheep--this one would keep bahhing for food

feeding and petting the goats

My goat friend!

Our time in Berlin was great, as was the trip as a whole.  We spent Thursday, driving back to Marc's great aunt and uncle's house, where we grabbed our other bag and headed to the train station for our train to take us back to Amsterdam and our last day and a half in Europe.  We arrived at our last hotel around dinner time on Thursday night and dropped our bags and enjoyed the last few bits of sunlight while picking out a spot to eat close to the hotel.  Friday, we got moving somewhat early and actually enjoyed a sit-down breakfast before making our way to the Anne Frank house for our 1:30 tour time.  Along the way we tasted gouda cheese and explored the flower market.  We spent about an hour in the house, then grabbed a quick lunch while making our way to the Maritime Museum via the red light district (when in Amsterdam...) And finished off our last day in Europe explore the history of Maritime explorers and packing up our bags for our SUPER early flight the next day (we had to be up at 4am on Saturday).  All in all, it was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime trip.  We learned lots about each other and traveling along the way, including but not limited to the fact that neither of us enjoys getting up at 5:30 on vacation and that maybe trying to see 4 countries in 5 days is a bit much!  But the memories are amazing and will last forever and now we can better plan for our next European vacation!

A few fast facts:
Favorite City: London
Favorite Thing: how about 3: Downton Abbey, Anne Frank House, petting animals at the zoo
Favorite Food: Belgium Waffles!!!!
Favorite Hotel; St. Ermin's in London
Favorite Fact: The Eiffel Tower was only supposed to be up for about 5 years but it is still standing today--this might be the scariest fact too, as we were told it once we were already on the Eiffel Tower!  EEK

Least Favorite City: Amsterdam
Least Favorite Thing: Hmmm maybe the Heineken Experience, not too bad, just don't love Heineken!
Least Favorite Food: Fish and Chips, but I knew that going into the trip since I dont love Fish
Least Favorite Hotel: Best Western Folkstone Opera in Paris (cause someone came into our room in the middle of the night using their key card with our deadbolt lock on--scary!!!)