Claire has been asked by lots of people about Olive's birth story....so we decided my blog would be a good place to put it out there for everyone. This is what Claire wrote:
"On
September 10, I had a routine 35 week appointment with the clinic to take a few
tests and check the baby’s heart rate, just like we had done for the past few
months.
Jeff liked to come with me
to my appointments to hear the heartbeat and see how everything was going (also
ditching work for an hour was pretty nice too).
When they used the Doppler monitor, Jeff and I looked
totally shocked.
The machine was
saying her heart rate was at 130 beats a minute, but just listening to it, it
was definitely much faster than usual.
The doctor and Jeff counted the beats over and over and they both agreed
that it was actually double, 260 beats a minute!
At this point, Jeff is really starting to worry but didn’t
show it at all, meanwhile I’m calm as a cucumber, not thinking it was that
serious because everyone else was acting so calm.
An hour later, I was laying on the operating table, waiting
for them to make the first incision!!
Olive was experiencing SVT (heart rate above 230 bpm) and they weren’t
sure why, so they explained to us that they would need to perform an emergency
c-section.
They might as well have
told me they were going to kill me because my reaction was about the same.
By this time, Jeff was really wetting
his pants.
He was able to quickly
call a few family members, gave me a blessing, and then out the door to get
changed into his OR attire.
They
wheeled me over to the OR and I was given the spinal thingy (thankfully I
didn’t even feel the shot they gave me) that made everything below my chest
numb.
I was shamelessly bawling my
head off in front of all the nurses and doctors until this point, and then I
was totally calm (maybe they put something good in my IV).
They started the operation and brought
Jeff in.
Poor Jeff was so shocked
to see me lying on the table with all my guts hanging out!
While they were working, I thought it
was the coolest thing I have ever felt, it was so fascinating (in a sick
way) and I was actually smiling and excited about the whole thing!
Literally five minutes into
it, they pulled the curtain down to show us our sweet Liv girl, kicking and
screaming, so exciting!
I sent
Jeff to be with Liv in the NICU, and I was wheeled to recovery.
For
the first two hours, there wasn’t any problem with SVT. Her heart rate regulated itself when
she was born but then she had another episode and they tried a few maneuvers to
shock her body into coming out of SVT naturally like pumping her knees to her
chest and covering her entire face and mouth in ice for 30 seconds. It was heartbreaking. Finally, she was treated with medicine
and the fast heart rate stopped.
Every few days Liv would have another episode but mostly they did lots
tests and EKGs to investigate what was causing this problem, however, we
weren’t at a children’s hospital and they didn’t have many answers for us, or
specialists to look at the test results.
Thankfully, her body was compensating beautifully and her stats were
great whenever she had this high heart rate every few days or so. She wasn’t even aware anything was happening, usually
sleeping through it. Finally, a
week after she was born, the cardiologist working with us decided this
was
beyond his training and transferred us up to Seattle Children’s
Hospital, which
turned out to be an enormous blessing. Before she was transferred, the
doctors weren't sure how her body was handling the SVT and the nurses
made it very plain that they didn't think she would make it. It was the
hardest night of our lives. Since she was a preemie, she was on a
ventilator and had wires and tubes attatched everywhere. The nurses
unhooked her as much as they could so Jeff and I could hold her for the
first and, they implied it maybe the last time.
At the new hospital, we had a team of several cardiologists and electro cardiologists working
to solve the problems she was experiencing. Being at a children’s hospital made all the difference. Everything seemed to slowly improve from then on. They determined that the irregular
arrhythmia she had was fairly common and babies grow out of it within a few
months, but most importantly, it was not life threatening for her. The SVT doesn’t hurt her
heart unless it goes untreated for long periods of time. Eventually we can expect to have
another episode with SVT, but the older she gets, the further apart they have
become. After we got her SVT under
control (three more weeks in the hospital), they finally sent us home once we
got her to eat more (thanks Nana D) and thankfully establish some breastfeeding (pumping
is the worst!)
Little
Girl is home and doing so good! At
least the month while she was in the hospital I was able to heal from the
c-section. I may not have had any
discomfort during the operation or the day after the c-section, but let me tell
you, that shiz was terrible! I
would never choose to have it done ever again, just zipping up my pants drives
me crazy! Olive hasn’t had any SVT
for about 10 days and everyday she is getting bigger, she is a little over a
month old and weighs just over six pounds! She is such a happy girl, smiling ALL the time. We feel so blessed for all the messages
and prayers and fasting done on behalf of our girl. Thank you all so much!
It was such a comfort knowing that even though we are away from friends and family,
we still had so much support and love from everyone and we can’t wait to be
back in Utah! I’m literally
counting down the days!! Can’t
wait to show Liv off to everyone!" Love- Claire and Jeff
 |
| Olive you |
 |
| birthday suit.... |
 |
| Liv in a basket... |
Olive has such a sweet gentle personality...she really has captured all our hearts! I can't wait to get back to Utah, too! I want to see all the cousins together-it's gonna be a party! (guess what's at the top of my list when I count my many blessings?...I will give you 4 guesses...)
It tastes sort of like a kiwi only milder and you don't get that burn on your tongue like you do sometimes with kiwi....not as sweet as I thought it would be, but very refreshing. 
They
wheeled me over to the OR and I was given the spinal thingy (thankfully I
didn’t even feel the shot they gave me) that made everything below my chest
numb. I was shamelessly bawling my
head off in front of all the nurses and doctors until this point, and then I
was totally calm (maybe they put something good in my IV). They started the operation and brought
Jeff in. Poor Jeff was so shocked
to see me lying on the table with all my guts hanging out! While they were working, I thought it
was the coolest thing I have ever felt, it was so fascinating (in a sick
way) and I was actually smiling and excited about the whole thing! Literally five minutes into
it, they pulled the curtain down to show us our sweet Liv girl, kicking and
screaming, so exciting! I sent
Jeff to be with Liv in the NICU, and I was wheeled to recovery. 
