Adding a Specialist

Olivia has had quite the month. Some good, some not so good. We're gunna start with the good. And of course end with my ooey gooey "love my miracle" stuff.
The good! Olivia has been finding her happy again. For a while there she was seeming kinda down in the dumps. Not all the time, but enough that I was wondering if something was up. Not quite lethargic, not quite her normal self. Not handing out smiles left and right. Basically, she seems to have inherited my seasonal funk stuff. So I started working on extra patience with her and trying to make things extra fun. And that seems to have helped. Either that, or she was just going through a growth spurt (which I think she was) and has finished. Anyway, she's been much happier lately. There's been a lot of, "This is the best day ever!" and "I love this day." So that makes me feel much better.
Olivia has loved the beginning of our holiday celebrations. She loved helping me decorate for halloween and make her costume. I let her pick pretty much everything, including how she wanted her makeup done, and she was the prettiest pink fairy I ever did see. Now that we're settling into our Thanksgiving preparations, she's been just as excited. Her and Ella have decided that for Thanksgiving we're going to play pin the feathers on the turkey, among other games. Liv doesn't remember thanksgivings as well as Ella so big sis has been helping Liv get excited about eating til we burst. And to top it all off, Livie knows that Abby is coming after Thanksgiving and that is something she is VERY excited about.
Olivia's excitement over Abby has been adorable. She randomly stops what she's doing to come kiss my belly all the time. Enough that it gets annoying at times. But still, cute. We've had lengthy talks about Olivia's role once Abby comes and she's very excited to be my big helper. She's even excited to be taught how to change a diaper. We'll see how that goes. We've got plans for big sister to feed her and pick out clothes and help bathe her. And Olivia is ready to become that big sister.
Olivia is still loving school. She had been wanting to stay home there for a bit but I think that was due to her growth spurt (and being tired because of it) or her seasonal funk. Whichever. But she has since grown out of that and is back to being ready early and waiting impatiently to head out the door. She is learning and growing and I love it. She is finding that playing with friends is pretty awesome and now frequently asks to have play dates with her school buddies.
Alright, the funnies that Liv has come up with.
With halloween came the scary stuff and liv is not a fan. We were talking about skeletons and she said, "I don't like them. Skeletons are dead and they keep walking!"
A random moment, Livie is sitting on my lap and blows air out of her nose and says, "Mom! Smell my nose breath!"
And then recently, we were sitting behind a family that has twins in church. Olivia was asking about them and I mentioned they were both in their mommy's tummy at the same time. She looks at me, looks at my tummy, and says, "If you have ten babies in your tummy, you'd explode!" It made sitting reverent in sacrament meeting difficult...
Okay, onto the not great stuff. Remember our potty issues? Yeah, Olivia is not really potty trained anymore. I can count, on one hand, the number of times she has used the potty on her own since September. Well, let me rephrase, since she has peed in the potty. When it comes to pooping, she still uses the toilet. But the poor girl just can't/won't pee. At first, we thought it was our rather tumultuous september and the coming of Abby. So I did EVERYTHING the professionals say when dealing with a child with emotional problems. NOTHING has worked. We're still doing those things, but we have also been meeting with her Dr. She has been tested about a million times for UTIs. Nothing. So we tried treating for a yeast infection. Nothing. So we started an estrogen steroid treatment, but two days into that Olivia DID get a UTI. Second one in 5 months. This was three days after being tested for a UTI, by the way. So that was a fun week...That was our one way ticket to a urology referral. They gave us the option of meeting with someone here, or just heading to PCH. Naturally, we chose our home away from home. My poor girl will be getting an abdominal ultrasound and then a catheter with contrast. It is not going to be fun, and I'm afraid will not go well either. We'll see. We won't be going down until January 3, so hopefully that'll give us time to prepare her. She's just so fed up with the accidents but doesn't know how to deal. She's told me multiple times after an accident, "I'm never going to get the hang of this!" And she's so upset about it and I just hold her and we feel grumpy about it together. If it's what they think it is, reflux between the bladder and kidneys, it's looking like it will take an antibiotic to fix this, but could possibly mean surgery. Of course, this girl never does things the normal way so it could totally just be emotional instability. But, we'll check every avenue and make sure. Especially since, if this is reflux, it could damage her kidneys. OI! Girl can't catch a break.
I guess we're just supposed to continue spending all our time at PCH. Olivia has a BIG cardiology appointment on Thursday. They'll be doing an echo, pacer check, the whole shebang. If all looks good we won't have to go back in for a year. A YEAR! But then we add urology and who knows what that will turn into. Hopefully things get figured out quickly and we can actually make it a year between a PCH visit. Fingers crossed!
So, as promised, I will end with praise of my miracle. Olivia may be my difficult one in the sense that there is always something to worry about with her. But, she is also the one that reminds me that miracles are real. As we start our month of thanks and (yes, for us) Christmas preparations, she is there to remind me of why we celebrate for two months straight. A year ago, she came off of oxygen. A miracle. Yesterday, she kept up with Ella while they had a Lindsey Stirling dance party. A miracle. Her smile, her loving heart, her giggles, her spunk, her strength. Everything about her reminds me of why I believe.