26.3

Well family and friends we have officially been in the hospital for one week with 9 more to go.  Baby girl and I are both doing great.  She is quite a spirited character already.  We have daily non-stress tests done.  They hook up monitors and track her hear rate for 20 min getting a base line and hoping to see at least 2 accelerations in that 20 min period.  Well miss Olivia had an agenda all her own on Sunday the 20 min session turned into well over an hour of monitoring.  She was way too active and kept moving making it virtually impossible to track her resting heart beat.  She generally has a resting heart beat of 150bpm which is  extremely strong for a baby her size.  This is a typical base line of a full term baby.  On Sunday she was closer to 165-170bpm, way too high for a base line number, but it was just because she was so active in there.  Doing her cardio already lol.  She finally did settle down but the nurses were all cracking up.  So ladies and gentleman we have a wild child on our hands she is going to keep all of us on our toes, and I am really looking forward to all of it.

I had the opportunity to go downstairs the other day and scrap book with some mom's that are in very similar situations as me.  It was therapeutic to chat with "real moms" instead of doctors or nurses.  These were woman with the same worries and concerns as me.  It was encouraging to hear the stories from the mothers that had older children that were born so early and are thriving and doing great.  I shared a special moment with a Mother that Im sure will remain a dear friend of mine for a long time.  Her baby girl was born 2 days ago at exactly 26 weeks along (exactly where we are right now)... she had just come down from the NICU and cried in my arms for quite a while.  Her baby is doing good but it is so terrifying to see your baby in that circumstance.  After calming her down she began to show me pictures and talk with me about her concerns and I think the fact that instead of just telling her its going to be fine I truly sympathized with her and just recognized the seriousness of the situation.  Not being negative or pessimistic just being real, I think she really appreciate that.  I know that her husband and family are doing everything in their power to just make her feel better by telling her everything is going to be fine but that's not always what you need to hear.  Meeting this woman was very healing for her and I both.  Sometimes a good cry is exactly what we need.