I’m turning one!

Oliver is going to be a year old on Tuesday. Excuse my language but holy shit. He was going to die. He couldn’t breathe on his own. His organs were all wrong. He was the king of pulmonary hypertensive crises. He had to go back on the oscillator and was never going to make it to surgery. Now he is going to be one. A happy, healthy, freakin adorable one year old boy. I’m crying as I type this. I can’t believe a miracle happened to me. I can’t believe how awesome my miracle was. I can’t believe how lucky our family is. Because Oliver is not just alive. He’s full of life!

He couldn’t be sweeter or snugglier or happier or more fun to be around. He claps, he crawls, he plays peek a boo. He laughs so hard and is obsessed with Poppy and our dog Forrest. He is absolutely undiscerning about food and will eat anything, even stuff you and I wouldn’t call food. Like pinecones and sand. He pulls himself up to stand and then plods down on his cute little tushy when he’s had enough. He bangs his head at least once a day because he’s so busy exploring. He is completely normal and totally charming.

He’s done so well this year in terms of his health. His doctors were really pleased that despite having gotten quite sick he didn’t need to be hospitalized and he didn’t lose any weight. His left nub looked like it’d stopped growing but now it looks like maybe it is. He had me all worried at his neonatal follow up clinic because he scored quite low on his gross motor but he’s since caught up and his communication score was very high. So mama can chill a bit. And most excitingly because his lungs have proven themself so resilient he’s now allowed out in public. We celebrated with a trip on the bus and subway which were enormous hits with both Ollie and Pops! In short, life ifs amazing. He’s had a lingering cough which could be post viral, allergies, reflux, or asthma. There’s no real way to tell yet so we’ll look in to it more at his 18 month follow up. He’s a miracle. And we are so incredibly grateful to have been so blessed.

In honor of his birthday we are trying to raise money for our beloved Dr Coxs CDH research project. Both as a thank you for saving our Ollie and to help prevent other families from having to go through what we did. If you’ve ever thought you’d like to make a gesture of gratitude to sick kids we would love if you’d consider joining us. This is the link to our fundraising page: http://my.sickkidsdonations.com/PersonalPage.aspx?registrationID=1930271&LangPref=en-CA#.UcnhVIokJ4s.facebook