LUCKY NUMBER 7

School Christmas Program

You blink and suddenly you have a seven-year-old. About seven and a half years ago, Dain and I were on Mount Rainier beginning a climbing adventure after months of planning and training. I was newly pregnant, having found out that surprise a few weeks earlier. I was young and fit, and our outfitter was confident that I could still safely complete the climb. With little data on the safety of pregnancy over 10,000 feet, I wasn't sure if I'd make a summit attempt, but I was ready to go as far as I could. On the morning of our climb, I had a pit in my stomach, but I quieted the voice of self-doubt in my head reassuring myself that it was just nerves. A few hours into our hike to high basecamp, however, I knew it was more than that. I didn't feel well. Something was wrong, and that voice in my head was now screaming that I had to be the one to call it. I broke the news to Dain and sobbed as we trudged back down to the parking lot. At the time I felt like a quitter. I didn't yet understand that motherhood is a succession of difficult decisions that most often are not about you, but looking back, quitting was one of the bravest things I've ever done.

Mount Rainier (August 2011)

Instead of standing on the top of a mountain, we ended up in a loud, bustling emergency room in Seattle. I had heavy bleeding and was told that we had a 50/50 chance of having a viable pregnancy. I left with antibiotics for a urinary tract infection and a lot of uncertainty, clutching a strip of ultrasound photos of our little blob with a beating heart. Of course that little blob turned into our vibrant, adventurous Olive, and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for her. Our lives are certainly different from that young couple that dreamed of standing atop the world's summits, and while I'll never say that it has been easy, Olive is an awesome little soul that lights up our lives. We are the lucky ones that get to be her parents.

Olive's prematurity and medical complications, especially her feeding tube, used to be our daily existence, but they are now so far in our past that it seems like a different lifetime ago that we had a kid who was so fragile. We occasionally talk about it, but it's not something I even think about daily any more. You would truly never know where Olive started if you met her now without knowing her background. Six years old was a wonderful age. She is fascinated by natural disasters, inquisitive about all things unknown and obsessed with squishy toys. She will giggle to no end when she writes the word "butt" on anything and everything. This is definitely the sweet spot of childhood. Olive is easy and delightful and still thinks her parents are the coolest people in the world.

It has been almost three years since we undertook our tube wean, and I am happy to report that Olive is an amazing eater. She would prefer to subsist on chocolate and cheese, but she happily eats almost anything we are serving. She eats most of her lunch at school and is getting close to being brave enough to try hot lunch. Over the past year she has finally figured out her own hunger cues, and we no longer have to monitor her intake at all, which is the greatest blessing. She's still small (weighing in at less than the first percentile) and may be in a booster seat when we roll up to junior high, but she's perfectly proportional and following her own little curve. She is healthy and happy, and apart from her NICU follow-up research study, we no longer need to schedule appointments with any sort of specialist or therapist.

First Grade Photo

She "graduated" from kindergarten last June, and her award at the end of the year was the "CEO of Kindness." That first year of school was pretty darn magical. Her teacher was amazing, and Olive was surrounded by so much love that we never worried about her. And now she is in the middle of FIRST GRADE. It has been considerably less full of unicorn sprinkles and rainbows than kindergarten, but Olive has adapted to it well. The only things she dislikes are computer class and having to wake up early and leave her warm, snuggly bed. Otherwise she happily heads to school each morning.

While she doesn't seem to notice, academics continue to be a struggle for her. We've resigned ourselves to the fact that they always will be, and we're prepared for the long haul ahead of us with extra patience, lots of work at home and summer tutoring. She's a fantastic speller, but reading and math are tough. Her attention span is short at school, but she's the most creative little person. She can spend hours creating superhero suits and art installations in her room. She has needed some accommodations, especially for testing, and she'll probably face an ADD/ADHD evaluation at some point. She's statistically more likely to have every sort of learning disability based on her early start in life, but as with all of the challenges of life, we'll take it as it comes.

Apart from the academic rigor of first grade, Olive is thriving. She's a Minnesotan through and through. She plays hockey and LOVES it, and she gleefully puts on all of her snow gear and bounds out into the snow. I'm still amazed she can skate with all that gear on her little body, but she makes it work. She is also playing basketball and rocking her first year as a girl scout. She's doing remarkably well to the point that it sometimes make me feel guilty. Why did Olive beat the odds?

Today is her seventh birthday, and it brings up a lot of big emotions. It's thirty degrees below zero in Minnesota today, and school is closed. She wasn't supposed to be born during the middle of the winter. I was due in April. I didn't get to meet her on the day she was born. I was in intensive care myself, and it took a few hours for the nurses to wheel me over to see her in my hospital bed, pushing the clock to January 31. Dain, and my mom and my best friend (who happened to be in the hallway at the right time) all got to see her before I did. As I tell Olive often, life isn't fair. But that doesn't mean it isn't incredible. We are the incredibly lucky ones that have this girl in our lives. Happiest of birthdays to our sweet, sweet seven-year-old.