A Unique Place to Be

With the wonders of medical technology these days, having a baby is a little different than it was say twenty years ago.  A baby can be born via surrogate, from donor eggs and sperm, and I'm sure a host of other ways that I'm not even too familiar with.  In Olivia's case, I gave her life, but our care wouldn't have been enough to keep her going to where she is today.  On our last clinic visit we went up to the PSHU to visit some of our favorite nurses and happened to run into our doctors.  Dr. Ilbawi was also making rounds and stopped to by for a rare chat.  One of the nurses suggested that we take a picture and called us "Olivia's Care Team". 

I thought it was a very accurate assessment of the situation, to have a picture of the people that created this life, but then of the man that took that little life hanging in the balance and giving it an extension against stacked odds.  When I went a little further in my thought process, this care team not only includes Dr. Ilbawi that had his hands on Olivia's heart twice already; but of all the nurses working round the clock, radiology techs, patient care techs, I mean there's been at least 50 different people that I could think of that have had some instrumental role in getting Olivia to where we are today.  That's a humbling and little sobering thought to think of any one of those people weren't around maybe we wouldn't be where we are either. 

As you can see, despite the fact that it was truly a wonderful moment for us as parents to be with Dr. Ilbawi, Olivia didn't quite feel the same.  To her, he was just another guy in scrubs out to do something unpleasant to her as a patient.  Dr. Ilbawi was a good sport about it, he just wanted a little loving from Little Missy.