Welcome Home Olivia

We have Olivia at home - not our home, but still out of the hospital. We passed all the checks, talked to her neonatologist, and escaped from DeVos Children's Hospital around 12:30 today. It felt wonderful. Now we just have one trek left and we will have Olivia at her own home, in her own bed.

Abby was very excited to have her baby sister at Grandma's house too - she climbed right up onto my lap to see her and helped pick out an outfit for Olivia to change into. I think she is pretty excited about her new role as big sister so far and I hope she keeps up that good attitude in our next few weeks and months learning how to be a family of four.

Family Photos and Yesterday's Recap

I had every intention of posting an update of how Olivia's day went yesterday, but my mom and dad have satellite internet, so it was spotty service at best and I just couldn't get things to work. So instead Steve and I focused our attention on Abby and getting the swelling to go down in my feet and legs.

Olivia made amazing progress yesterday. When Steve left her at 10 p.m. on Friday night she was still on the ventilator and was on a very low oxygen level. They took her off the ventilator around 11 or 12 that night and put her back onto the CPAP. Olivia is not a fan of CPAP - I think she must have pulled the mask off at least 5 times in the couple hours I was able to sit with her (since a lot of my time right now is taken up with pumping breast milk for her. And she is finally able to have that milk through a feeding tube, so it is wonderful to know that her little body is learning to digest food. Hopefully that means she will be off the iv soon.

By about 4 p.m. yesterday the nurses decided that they were tired of putting the CPAP back onto Olivia since she was pulling it off about once every 20 minutes. So they removed it and left her on just room air breathing all on her own. She did fantastic. So well, in fact, that I didn't even notice that she wasn't on the machine when I came back. I just looked at the stats on the screen, saw they were good, noticed that her arms and legs weren't failing so I knew she was sleeping, and sat down to put my feet up.

We left Olivia around 5, since Abby was in serious need of mom and dad time, but she was still doing great when Steve called to check in around 10. We are about to head up for the morning, so we are hoping more great progress was made overnight.

Olivia's Newest Photo

Olivia is continuing to make improvements tonight and is requiring less oxygen than this morning. We are now expecting her to be at DeVos for between one and two weeks, but the neonatologist believes that she will have no lasting effects from her early start. Steve has been with her all afternoon and I have been resting and trying to recouperate from the surgery and long car ride last night (along with the severe sleep deprivation). Abby also needed some serious mommy time and has still been having some mini-meltdowns throughout the day.

I'm hoping to spend all day tomorrow at the hospital with Olivia and Steve, or at least as much of it as my body will allow. We've borrowed a iTouch from one of my wonderful little sisters, so we should be able to update you all throughout the day as we get more information.

DeVos Children's Hospital

Olivia, Steve, and I arrived at DeVos Children's Hospital pretty early this morning. I was very fortunate to be able to be discharged less than 40 hours after my c-section. We are even more fortunate to have an amazing group of friends in Sault Ste. Marie who made sure we had just what we needed to make the trip from Petoskey to Grand Rapids (Thanks Deb, Tara, Trevor, Craig, Samantha, and Chad for everything!). So at 10:30 last night Steve and I left Petoskey following Olivia in the ambulance full of the team from DeVos. On the way to pick Olivia up, the ambulance hit a deer, so they got started a little later than anticipated, but they made the trip back in good time, with no problems and Olivia responded really well to the initial treatments.

God has been faithfully providing just what we needed and making sure that we are in the right places at the right times. We were able to be transferred from Sault Ste. Marie to Petoskey while I was in labor without a problem. The surgeons in Petoskey were able to get us in almost immediately for our c-section (my apologies to the moms who got bumped on the schedule so we could be treated first). Then we were able to have a quick transfer to Grand Rapids and Olivia was able to see doctors who work with preemies everyday. When we arrived at DeVos at 2 a.m. the nursing staff had arranged for a room for Steve and I at the Renucci Hospitality House, which is connected to the hospital building. Having a bed and shower right in the same building as the NICU was such a blessing after being awake all day and driving long and late into the night. And being in Grand Rapids we are able to see Abby and stay with family while Olivia gets well.

This morning we were finally able to hold Olivia and she was instantly a happy baby. The nurse was able to turn her oxygen level down from 40% to 37% almost immediately after she started snuggling with her mom. When I left at noon she was down to 34% oxygen on the ventilator and the nurse was hopeful that she would be off the ventilator and back onto the CPAP sometime tomorrow. After the CPAP Olivia may be able to breathe totally unassisted and start eating and possibly even nursing. Abby was able to come to the NICU this morning to meet her baby sister. She did amazingly well and spent about 20 minutes visiting with Daddy and checking out her Baby Sister. She got scared about the "Big Sister" sticker they wanted to put on her shirt and the visitor bracelet they wanted her to wear.

Steve is spending the afternoon loving on Olivia, while I am back at Mom and Dad Hodges' house resting and giving Abby some quality time. The trip down last night really made me sore and probably wasn't the greatest thing for someone so soon after surgery, but I wouldn't have stayed in Petoskey while my littlest princess was in Grand Rapids. I wish I could spend every minute up at DeVos with her, but I know that she'll do best with a rested mommy.

Transfer Orders

Olivia has received some transfer orders and we are about to head out to DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids. The doctors are fairly certain that she has persistent pulmonary hypertension, which is a short term problem that can be treated, just not here in Petoskey. So... she is going to start the treatment as soon as the specialists from Grand Rapids arrive to pick her up and Steve and I will follow in the car. We've been very fortunate to have a wonderful hospital staff at Northern Michigan helping us with all the questions and details of making the best decisions for Olivia and our family. And we are very thankful that they agreed to release me way ahead of schedule so that I can be with our little princess in Grand Rapids and our big princess (or "Belle Girl" as she would prefer to be called) in Hastings while we wait for Olivia to get past this little hurdle and head home.

Welcome Olivia Joy!

Well... our youngest child is apparently a very determined young lady (among other things). For some reason, we will probably never know exactly why, she decided on Tuesday afternoon that she wanted to get out of my belly. We worked pretty hard to keep her there - I was a great pincushion for quite a few hours trying to get contractions to stop - but it seemed like for every shot they gave me to slow labor down she got feistier and more determined to get out. Her punching and kicking and bucking was so extreme at times that they couldn't tell if or when I was having contractions.

Olivia was supposed to be born in Sault Ste. Marie so she could be a Yooper, but she apparently wanted to be a "Troll" like the rest of her family, so she decided to make her entrance early enough that our local hospital needed to send us somewhere that had a NICU available, just in case she needed it. I'm glad they did send us or she would have been sent after birth to Marquette and I would have been stuck in Sault Ste. Marie recovering without the ability to see her and most likely without having Steve around. As it is, she started out on the CPAP machine - all the hoses over her nose in the pictures - and with iv antibiotics and lots of monitors. This morning they switched her from the CPAP to an oxygen hood, which is a good step. Once her breathing stabilizes we will be starting feedings and if those go well and her tests keep coming back good we could be going home in the next few days. We are kind of anticipating being here 5 to 7 days, but with preemies, even big ones, you never know. They were able to take out her feeding tube this afternoon and Olivia and I had some quality one on one time, even though we cannot hold her yet. She was very alert and, like her big sister, was loving having her little feet and legs rubbed.
So here are the official stats, for the interested:
Olivia Joy Obreiter, 7 pounds 11 ounces, 19 inches long, born 3-10-2010 at 7:40 a.m. at Northern Michigan Hospital, Petosky, MI.

Big Sister Abby is spending a few days with Grammy Mary and is LOVING it and playing with the puppies. She hasn't seen Olivia yet, although she did stop by the hospital last night and visited Mommy before she left for Grammy's house. We didn't want Abby's first impression of her little sister to be one with tubes and hoses and scary noises involved. Hopefully they will be meeting very soon.