Monday Update

Olivia was removed from the i.v. last night and is doing great. She also had the feeding tube removed and is taking all her feedings either from a bottle or nursing if I am around. She nursed 4 times today and got progressively better and better at it as the day went on. She is totally ready to come home as long as her biliruben levels (that measure jaundice) have come down again today. She even got to put clothes on for the first time ever today. We let Abby pick out her first outfit when we went in today. Abby has decided that her little sister is alright. Steve asked Abby today what he should call Olivia, since he likes to shorten people's names. Abby looked right at him and said, rather forcefully, "O-iva Joy" (she can't quite figure out the L in Olivia). We cracked up. She gave her sister lots of pats and hugs. And she also did some great cuddling with her little sister.

Abby has been doing some really funny things in the last few days. She is really becoming her own little person during this transition. Today she went to the mother's lounge with me to help me pump some bottles for Olivia to drink during the night. First she started reading me a book that we have at home and she was finishing the sentences when I stopped reading. The lady in the area next to me was cracking up at Abby's very forceful reading of "Olivia" - her very favorite book. Then Abby decided to go on an adventure and surprised another mom who was pumping. I think Abby was pretty freaked out, but luckily the other mother found it funny. After Abby left the hospital, Grandma Mary took her and Aunt Emily to Dairy Queen. They ordered Abby a baby cone and Emily a blizzard. Abby told Emily she didn't want a baby cone and gave it to Emily to hold. Then she told Emily she would hold the blizzard (and eat it too). And she also told Emily to watch "belle girl" because Emily would like it and it was her favorite. I'm amazed at how much personality she's developed even over one week.

I'm also amazed by how marvelous God is when we allow him to direct our paths and trust him with the outcome. A few months ago I was reading Exodus and ran across a verse I'm sure I'd read many times before but never noticed. It was Exodus 14:14 - The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still. Now... anyone who knows me knows I am anything but still. In fact, it would probably be the last thing most people would say about me. But in the last few months I've found many things and situations in my life that have required me to just be still and trust God to do what he wants done in the situation. Little did I know all those little situations were just practice for having to be still and trust God to bring Olivia through her trials. It was not easy laying in a hospital bed trying to recover myself while my new little girl struggled to breathe. It was even harder to follow her as she rode in an ambulance from Petoskey to Grand Rapids. But somehow God allowed me to remember that verse in Exodus and to be still and wait for the work He was going to do in our family. And today we have a totally normal, healthy baby who is feeding on her own and ready to be discharged from the NICU. I've been asked many times in the last few days how I can stay so calm and collected in the face of everything we've been dealing with. As much as I'd like to say I am just that together, it's been nothing but faith that God knows just what he is doing. And I'd say He's done a pretty amazing job.