Olivia has been home from the NICU for ten awesome days! We are so thrilled to have her in our family. I can't seem to hold her enough, but I have to share with Daddy sometimes. Brooklyn adores her little sister, and loves to help. Today I asked her to please go get a diaper for Olivia. She tried to bring me every newborn size diaper she could find. :)

If you don't want to read the next part, (it is VERY long) skip to the bottom for some adorable pictures!

The NICU stay...


The NICU experience was such a blur, and I wasn't quite sure what to write about on here. It was definitely the longest, most stressful week of my entire life. I don't know how Mom's do it who have babies who stay for a few weeks/months! I cried a lot at the beginning. When they came and told us they had taken her to the NICU just three hours after she was born, I was completely devastated. (That doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling) Since she was born at about 1:30 AM, and they came and told us they took her to the NICU at 4:30, I got NO sleep. It was the worst night of my life. My baby was supposed to be there in the room with me. I was supposed to be nursing her, and snuggling her. But instead, she was taken somewhere else in the hospital, and all I knew is she was grunting with each breath, her chest was retracting, and her oxygen levels had dropped into the 70's.
I wanted to go down to see her as soon as I could, so around 7:30/8:00ish the nurse wheeled me down to visit her. They didn't know very much at the time. She was on oxygen, and had an IV. They had started antibiotics for Group B strep, because that is the most likely cause of sickness in a baby with her symptoms. They also started her on another antibiotic as well. They did a chest x-ray which the doctor looked at and cringed. He said it looked "icky" and she was definitely sick. The only thing I wanted to hear from a doctor or nurse is that she was going to be OK. I didn't hear that the first day. Nobody knew exactly what was going on. When I visited her a few hours later, she wasn't on the regular oxygen, she had been switched to high flow. It looked very intimidating to see her laying there with all of the tubes, and wires attached to her. It made it awkward to hold her, but I didn't care!
The day I had to leave the hospital, she had taken another step backward, and needed to be on the CPAP machine. That was absolutely awful. I think I cried more over that, than any other time during our stay. She couldn't open her eyes because it had to be taped over them to fit on her head properly. She looked so fragile, and the machine just looks plain scary! She was on the CPAP machine for two days, before they moved her to high flow again, then back down to regular oxygen. She also developed jaundice. I had experienced this with Brooklyn, so it wasn't as scary for me. She was only on the lights for a few days. It was hard to not be able to sit there and hold her. The nurses were really great about letting me hold her every 3 or 4 hours for 30 minutes. They also let me do all of her cares, so I was able to change her diaper, and take her temperature. It made me feel better to be able to do something for her. Eventually they let her start eating my milk, and then I was able to breast feed.
I became a champion pumper. It was the only thing that * I * could do for her.  I developed mastitis, which made her stay a little bit harder on me. It made me feel like I had the flu, and I just felt awful. I needed to rest, but I only wanted to stay with Olivia. Thankfully a nurse recognized my symptoms and told me about mastitis, and I was able to call my doctor and get on antibiotics. By the time she came home, I was starting to feel human again.
We were blessed to have my parents watch Brooklyn for a few days, then Jason's Mom came up for a week and helped around the house and played with Brooklyn. We couldn't have done it without her!
Anytime there was a new admit into the NICU I wanted to go out into the hall and give the Mom a big hug. I wish I would have.
Nothing was harder than leaving the hospital without my baby. That's not how it was supposed to happen. Every night when I left the NICU, I had tears in my eyes.
Olivia was finally able to come home on oxygen. She's on the absolute lowest amount possible. At her check up on Monday she was saturating about 90-91% without it. The doctor won't let her off of it until she's saturating at 94% without it, and then she'll possibly still use it when she's sleeping. It will be nice to to have her off of it, but I'm glad she's getting a chance for her lungs to fully heal. We're not in TOO big of a hurry, we aren't going to take her out in public for awhile anyway. I was told to wait at least a few months before we take her into groups of people. Her lungs are very fragile, and a small cold could be devastating.
We still don't know for sure what caused everything. The official diagnosis for her was, sepsis (infection), and respiratory distress. Her doctor ordered a test on my placenta to see if there was an infection in it. Those results aren't back yet. It's also possible I had group B strep even though I tested negative for it a few weeks before. (It can come and go anytime)  They were also debating if she was just born too fast and inhaled fluid. They may never know.
The only thing that really matters is that she keeps getting better.

She has huge feet that don't fit into newborn socks.

Daddy loves his little girl!

Yes I'm the Mom who tortures my babies with huge bows.

She looks like Daddy!