I cannot believe another month has gone by! It is true when they say the days are long, but the years are short. I’ll jump right in!

Olivia’s eating has still been a little bit of a challenge. She is eating more but not consistently. When we took her to the pediatrician on April 24, she had only gained 3 oz in a month. So while she didn’t lose weight, she didn’t gain as much as expected. On a positive note, her length is growing great. We have an appointment with a dietician through outpatient pulmonology next week, so my guess is we will add more calories (more powder) to her bottles.

Medicine wise, Olivia is off all of her oral medication. Woo Hoo! I am sure she is thrilled and we are happy to not have to pay for it. Her breathing treatment has also been cut down to once a day, so we do that in the evenings. Our next appointment with pulmonology is May 23rd, so by then there is a good chance that we will discontinue it as well.

Oxygen! Olivia is off of oxygen for the most part. She mainly only needs it when we are driving in the car. Hoping that by our appointment at the end of the month she will be done completely! She is our little miracle that blows us away every day with her progress. Here is pic of our little Mob Boss.

Speaking of progress, Olivia has been doing well with her development and hitting milestones. Both PT and Child Development are happy with her progress. Here are some of her milestones:

I think those are all the updates for Olivia. When we were leaving the NICU, my mom told everyone that she would make her famous lasagna for the department. So, last week we found a day where all of our primary nurses were working. My mom made four huge lasagnas, over 120 sugar cookies, and brought salad and bread for day and night shift! Food is definitely the way Nonna loves to show her thanks. The meal got rave reviews! And Liv got to take a photo with four of her primaries:

Last weekend was a busy weekend for our family. First we had the NICU reunion. It is a great event that Sidney, the Child Life Specialist organizes. Families from over the years come back to see the NICU staff. They rent out Fairytale Town and there is always a theme. This year it was Harry Potter. Next year will be even more fun when Olivia can do more. It was a lot of fun to see our favorites and see new friends that we made in the NICU.

We weren’t able to see Mara, our other night primary, when we dropped the lasagna off because we did it during the day and she was working during the reunion, but she came by for a visit with her fiance and we had lunch and got to hang out for awhile:

On Sunday we got to celebrate my soon-to-be-arriving niece, Ilaria! It was so fun to honor my sister and brother-in-law. We saw lots of people, enjoyed yummy food, and played fun games. We can hardly wait for “Ari” to join our family! She is so loved already and Olivia cannot wait to meet her best friend!

Jeremy’s new job is going well. It has been an adjustment for our family. We got use to Daddy being home all the time. If you need HVAC help, he’s your man 😉

I was scheduled to go back to work this week but after talking to my therapist and primary care physician, it was clear that I was not ready mentally to go back with everything that has gone on. I am now out on disability until July 10th. I am so thankful to have this extra time to work through my own stuff, and to spend this time with Olivia while she continues to improve.

Today I got to attend the Patient and Family Advisory Council at Sutter. I am really excited to be a part of this to provide feedback and make things even better at Sutter. We had a great experience, but with everything there is always room for improvement and there is also always innovation. On top of that, I am also going to begin the process of being a volunteer in the NICU by being a support and resource for parents. Right now they don’t have anything like that and I know it is something that I would have liked to have. I had to look for that on my own and some of it was not local. Like blogging, I feel like volunteering will definitely help with my healing process. And I look forward to helping other parents during the stressful time of being in the NICU.

OK, I think that is the update! Thank you for your patience with not having as many updates. As many of you know, it is hard to find time once you have a little one to do things, lol.

Lil’ Liv’s Numbers:

• Age: 32 weeks + 5 days
• Adjusted Age: 18 weeks + 2 days
• Weight: 11lbs and 9.8oz (8th percentile)
• Height: 24 inches (41st percentile)
• Head: 39 cm (45th percentile) – have not measured again