Okay you guys, gear up for a long one here… I planned to only fill up two posts with my pregnancy, but I may have cut the last one too short because I still have so. much. to. say. So just know I don’t blame you if you skim this novel I’ve got for ya…

If you’ve just landed here for the first time, feel free to backtrack to my last post reliving Part I of my pregnancy.

I left off right after we received some of the hardest news about our baby girl, Olivia, and right before God really made his presence known in the midst of our situation.

I mentioned how we felt urged to tell friends and family what was going on because we didn’t want to be alone. In our minds, I think we knew there was a real possibility of deep depression if we didn’t have a strong community around us. At the time, we were attending a missional community with some of our church family, and I had just finished interning at Doxa under our worship pastor, Donald. It’s no coincidence that we were placed within that group of loving, sacrificial people, or that I had been working with the pastors and staff at our church – I firmly believe it was 100% God ordained. He knew we needed strong, faithful friends surrounding us to keep us from spiraling.

I remember when Justin told me Donald had asked if it would be okay if our MC fasted and prayed over us during our next evening together.

Honestly, I was in awe.

I wept yet again that these friends cared for us and our baby so much that they would give up eating and petition to Jesus on our behalf. The night we were prayed over, I felt such genuine love stem from each hand that was laid on me. Throughout the coming months, we leaned real hard on some of those folks, and we are forever grateful for their roles in this story.

Our appointments were continuously increasing, beginning with ultrasounds every two weeks to check on her growth, heart, and kidneys. Not long into December, our doctor said she was concerned about Olivia’s brain development. We made another appointment to see a neurologist, and would undergo a fetal MRI in January.

Meanwhile, we trekked over to Seattle Children’s Hospital for our echocardiogram that would take a closer look at Olivia’s heart.

After an hour long ultrasound looking at blurred black and white objects we couldn’t make out, we met with a fetal cardiologist who gave us even more bad news. She told us that she saw a small to medium ventricular septal defect (VSD) – basically a hole – between her bottom two chambers, her heart was still on the left side of her chest, and she had pulmonary artery stenosis. We were assured that if needed, a VSD is an easy fix, and is a cardiologist’s form of an earache (which should’ve made us feel better than it did). Her heart’s position wouldn’t be an issue, but they weren’t quite sure the reasoning behind it being on the left side, so we would have additional imaging of her lungs during our MRI. The biggest issue she saw was her pulmonary artery. It was stretched and so narrow that she didn’t believe blood flow would be sufficient. We were told that she may need to have open-heart surgery within the first few days of life – and this broke me. I couldn’t keep it together in front of her or our second genetic counselor. I kept imagining watching my tiny baby wheeled off to surgery, and I wouldn’t be there with her. She wouldn’t know what was going on.

That news hit me hard and affected me for a very long time.

After we were finished meeting with the doctor, our genetic counselor looked at me with such pitiful eyes, and I truly hope that isn’t the look she gives all the other parents she works with. She left and hurried back with a small basket filled with a jumble of tiny, knit hats. This was a big moment for me in that I realized how selfish and prideful I really was. I grudgingly took a multicolored hat, but wanted to yell at her and say, “I DON’T WANT TO BE A CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL MOM!” I didn’t want to be the family that people knit hats for. I didn’t want to be the mother to a sick child.

In that moment, it was all about me – and then I got slapped in the face with conviction.

Who was I to make this about me in the slightest? I realized then that I needed to step into my role as a mother quicker than most, and start truly sacrificing my wants for my baby’s needs. It reminds me of something a friend said after sharing our story with them while I was still pregnant: “You are being sanctified as parents even before you hold your daughter in your arms.” Like, I don’t think truer words were ever spoken over me, you guys.

Photo by Athena Grace

Later in December on our way to Eugene for Christmas, I noticed my feet and ankles (okay more like cankles at that point) were swelling up more than I ever imaged they would. We decided to head to the doctor once we came home, and I was diagnosed with preeclampsia at around 30 weeks. This was mildly terrifying news because it poses such a risk to both the baby and mother, and can escalate very quickly. Not long after that we also were told by our high-risk doctor that because Olivia had an intrauterine growth restriction, my placenta was likely not doing its job, and would eventually fail. She let us know that we wouldn’t go past 37 weeks, and we both had mini panic attacks. Neither of us were prepared to actually have a baby – we’d been so caught up in the pregnancy and her current issues that we hadn’t thought twice about her birth or anything that came after that. Yikes.

In January, we went back to Children’s for our MRI.

This was just the beginning of miraculous healing for Olivia.

After I realized I have mild claustrophobia, we discussed the findings from our MRI with an extremely kind neurologist. She reassured us that she didn’t see any brain abnormalities, and Olivia’s brain seemed to be developing properly physically. We weren’t quite sure how to react in the moment because we had gone through months of bad news and no improvements. You guys, we were finally crying tears of JOY. We hugged and smiled and prayed and shared our good news with everyone we knew.

Right after our MRI, we had a follow-up echocardiogram to check on any changes in the development of Olivia’s heart. This time we met with the head of fetal cardiology at Seattle Children’s, so you know he knows his stuff. He came into our tiny meeting room after our ultrasound and looked meh. We thought by the look on his face that he must not have any good news, but then he said something that amazed us.

“I’m not sure what the previous doctor saw, but I’m not seeing any of these issues today.”

HOLY LORD. Was this guy for real?! Our baby girl’s heart had moved to the center of her chest from the left side, her pulmonary artery was no longer stretched, and there was no VSD to be found. We weren’t sure at first if we were hearing him right, because he still had a neutral look to his face, so we kept saying, “That’s good news, right?” Once again, we left the hospital with silly grins and celebrated by telling everyone that our daughter was being HEALED.

We continued with our twice per week ultrasounds and non-stress tests (NST) to monitor Olivia. She was still small, measuring between 2-3 weeks behind in growth, but she was moving and doing all the normal things babies do in the womb. Though her left kidney was still not functioning and the cysts were still present, her right kidney was doing her a solid and picking up the slack.

Then at 34 weeks, we finally met our baby girl.

C