Monday, April 7, 2008

Monday, April 7, 2008 - Update

Howdy Everyone!
I'm ready for Spring!

Okay, can I take my hat off now?


Last night, I came across this site: An Introduction to Extremely Premature Babies. It may help educate some of you as to how early Olivia was. I also found this part of the article interesting:
An individual baby's chance of surviving may be much different from that 50% overall figure, however. These individual differences are mostly due to four issues:

1. the time into that week (a baby barely 23 weeks is less likely to do well than a baby almost 24 weeks)
Olivia was only 23 weeks, 1 day.

2. the baby's gender (girls tend to do better than boys)
She is a girl.

3. multiple pregnancy (singletons tend to do better than individual babies from multiple pregnancies)
She was from a multiple pregnancy.

4. whether there was time before birth to give the steroid (betamethasone, also called Celestone) shots to the mother (which helps the baby's chance of surviving and avoiding severe brain bleeding)
As I've mentioned before, I had absolutely no warning. It was a true blessing that I was at the hospital. There is a reason we are given a mother's instinct.

So, Olivia had only one out of four and look how well she is doing? There is no doubt in my mind that God has big plans for Olivia. . .my daughter, my dream, my miracle.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What precious pictures! I was pleased to hear that her Grandpa & Grandma Glunt got a home visit -- I know they were thrilled.

Your family has been such a blessing to so many and sharing on this blog has been a wonderful thank-you to all of us who pray for you -- most of our prayers don't get such feedback you know!!

Hugs and God Bless...Shelly K.

Kerry said...

I have researched microprematurity some, but that article really does a good job of summarizing it. Having it all right there really shows just how amazing Olivia really is!

And really, Jodi, you did a great job with her these past months. I know it hasn't been easy and it will most likely be even harder once you start exposing her to more situations and more people, but being as vigilant as you were is part of the reason she is doing so well. A really selfless act, one that has kept your daughter healthy and allowed her lungs to heal and her body to get stronger. Well done!

And it will be June before you know it! But until that time, if you don't feel comfortable taking Olivia somewhere don't feel bad about it. Your instincts have been spot on thus far.

Kerry

Amanda said...

I LOVE how much you love your baby girl!!! It warms my heart each day I read your blog- I started at the begining of your blog the other day because I was only reading hit and miss ones here and there... and I sat for over 2 hours last night reading about you and your journey with the babies- God knew that Oliva needed a mommy as good as you and that would love her unconditinally!! Keep up the good work! (and prayers:)

Anonymous said...

You guys take such good care of Olivia and because of that she's doing so good! She's an Angel and she is with us so she can be a testimony of God's awesomeness.
She's such a blessing.

God is Awesome:)