And then she turned One.

This was my first glimpse at my daughter. This shot, is what Mum and my midwife saw and what Eddie and I had no idea about. We had absolutely no clue as to what the year that followed this would be like.....

But here we are. The baby is One Year Old. A whole 12 months. She has been out now longer than she was in for. And she is rapidly approaching toddlerhood and leaving babyhood behind.

This past year has been one of the most important of my life. Of course, I have grown and matured and changed with each child, but with having Olive I have realised who and what, is important in my life, and in my children's. I have cemented some very firm friendships that I am so incredibly thankful for.

And the support for my baby? Eddie and I couldn't ask for more. Everyone is incredible. Olive already knows she is well loved - you can tell in the way we wander around the shops and she charms everyone she can by permanently fixing a goofy smile to her chubby wee face. And in the way she hasn't yet learnt to clap, like most babies, yet she can say Aunty and Happy on cue.

Though she has all the support she will ever need, she also likes to be independant and she has a wonderfully feisty and determined streak - OK, it might be hard for Mummy to deal with that part right now when trying to make her sleep but it will only serve her well when she is older.

I am so immensely proud of my sweet girl. I have always wanted to show her to the world, to show how clever we are that we made such an  amazing and beautiful tiny human being. You know what though? We are REALLY clever....we made three of them ;-)


Happy 1st birthday our beautiful baby Olive. Love Mum, Dad, Jaxon and Meisha xoxo

 

With all babies/children you have a load of Firsts. First smile, first laugh, first food, first time they crawl, first time they sit, first tooth, first steps, etc etc. I thought with Olive being my third child I was somewhat seasoned to these Firsts (the good and bad ones!) and could still enjoy them all as I know (oh, too well!) they don't last.
But the other night, I had a different First. It may not be a big deal to anyone else, but it marked another wee step in our journey with our Nevus Bub.

We went for a swim at night with the kids, and seeing as the hotel had just cleaned the pool, it was packed. I think most guests had the same idea as us!
Kids had a ball, and though the pool was thermally heated, we still got a little cold so I got Olive out and wrapped a towel around myself. Mothers Instinct had me automatically go to take off Olive's wet and cold swimsuit to wrap a towel around her tiny body.

And for a split second, I halted.

I have never hesitated before to fulfill any of my children's needs for the sake of others, from breastfeeding them in public, to stripping them nudey in a beach carpark....but for different reasons, this time I paused in my actions. I realised people would look, and perhaps ask, or perhaps be intrigued, or disgusted (yes, we all know there are THESE kinds of people in the world, no matter how much you sugar coat it). And for that very small fraction of time, I considered whipping Olive up in the towel, wet swimsuit and all, and taking her back to our room.

But I am starting as I mean to carry on with my girl. She must be proud of her body, and never ashamed. Never hiding it (like her mother hides all her stretchmarks!), and never letting it stop her from doing anything - whether that be getting changed in a public changing room, or entering a swimsuit competition. She is beautiful, she is strong, and she is proud. Even  at 11 months old. This is my baby.

So I thought, F**k them.
And I took my baby's togs off, and wrapped her safely and warmly in her nice dry towel and we went back to our room, just like I did with my older two when they were her age.

This may not sound like a big deal to a lot of you, and in the scheme of things, it isn't.
But for me, as Olive's mama, it was another step.

Oh, and she frickin LOVED the swimming - apparently it is hilarious when Mummy goes underwater and jumps up saying BOO!

When Olive was born, and she wasn't breathing, and I hadn't even met her, I didn't care about these 'spots' on her body. I didn't care about this giant nevus on her body. I didn't care about anything, other than the fact that I knew my baby was alive, and was going to be 'OK'.

Once we were home, we settled quickly into our new wee family and it wasn't until she was a week or two old, that the enormity of her condition set in.
Eddie and I researched on the internet this condition our beautiful baby had. We spent about two days crying at EVERYTHING. Every comment, every picture, every story, every medical detail we pored over.
Through our research, we stumbled across a Facebook group which is a support group formed specifically for nevus owners or their parents/family.

We came across scary pics of tissue expanders, and beautiful photo's of other children with nevus'. Questions asked by other members, and wee stories told. As overwhelming as this all was, there was one point and it was as simple as that - the ONE story, which completely shaped our attitude towards how we wanted to deal with, and raise, this special girl of ours.

The story was about Audrey. She is 17 years old and lives in Texas. She has a BTN and a ton of satellites. She is BEAUTIFUL. And I mean that. She is an absolutley beautiful person. Inside, and out. Her strong attitude and confident demeanour is one to be admired, from all of us - not just nevus owners!
I have befriended her Mum on FB, and she has been an amazing source of advice and confidence boosters in our journey so far.

Anyway, the story her Mum told was one of Audrey at kindergarten. Her top had ridden up some at the back, and her wee kindy friend asked 'what's that?' of her nevus. Her mum, automatically protective (who of us aren't? ;-) ), jumped in with, 'that's Audrey's birthmark'. Audrey, proud as punch of her nevus, corrected Mum - 'No! That's my nevus!' and proceeded to show her friend her nevus.

Her friend then spent much of the duration of their kindy session stroking Audrey's nevus.

This was the sweetest, most comforting story I could have read at the time. Both Eddie and I, tears streaming down our faces, giggled and said 'I want Oli to be like Audrey!'.

This story was such a defining moment for us, as to exactly how we wanted to raise our Olive, and our attitude towards her and her body.

Recently, there was a disagreement on the site, from different parents about whether they had light hearted stories to tell new Nevus Parents. Whilst some most certainly did, others didn't, and they really couldn't see the lighter side of the situation, mostly due to horrible experiences - bad surgeries, or other kids bullying and saying heart breaking things to their children. Kids can be really mean :(

I found this quite an eye opener, and realised something about me, Eddie and our families.

We have not once been ashamed of her. Not ever. I don't want to hide her. I don't want her to ever feel like she has to hide herself. A lot of you who met Olive when she was born will remember how forward I was with showing you her nevus, and a lot of you also probably felt a bit uncomfortable. The Peacekeeper part of me wants to apologise for this, but I am not going to. I had to do this, because if she is going to strive to be as confident and strong a young woman as someone like Audrey, she needs all the support of everyone who loves her. And this means being completely open about her condition.
She is amazing. I have never once wanted to change her. She was born this way for a reason, and she will be a big teacher in her life. She already is.

We have movement!

At 8.5 months, Little Madam has discovered how to commando crawl. She is proud as punch about it too. Now, she can get into all those DVD's and XBOX games near the TV....she can scoot into the kitchen when Mummy is busy cooking (danger!) and she can make her way to the garage door when she hears it opening as an indication that her 'Dadda' is home.
The wee tyke is fast claiming her place in our family, and oh what a beloved one it is! Olive is so doted on by everybody, though she seems to have an extremely special place in her Pop's and her brother's hearts. She loves those two and is never low on smiles and fake (sometimes real!) laughs for them.

Her little curl is getting so long it has almost doubled over. She is our very own little TinTin girl and she most definitely lives up to the poem -

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead

When she was good
She was very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid!

Olive has us all wound very lighly around her chubby little fingers and reeled in as close as she can get us. And so she should - she is absolutely one of the cutest babies *I've* ever seen! (Ok, ok, I might be biased, but come on - how can you resist this face?):

Because she is such a charmer, I thought she may have charmed the pants off the dermatologist we went to see last week.
Ahhh no.

She was quite happy to take her clothes off and show him her nevus but when it came to putting said clothing back on, she threw quite an impressive tiny sized tantrum. Thankfully Pop was there to entertain her for me.

It was quite a productive appointment, in comparison to the first one we had for Olive. This time, the derm listened to me and made me feel as important as him in the decisions regarding Olive and her care, and he was happy to discuss all points and issues I had.

Olive is booked for an eye test, to check for lesions on the backs of her eyes. We are not going to have an MRI performed, as she is not displaying any developmental delays or issues and we all feel it is too much for a tiny person to go through (with the sedation and what have you) when it will not change anything.

Olive will continue to have 6 monthly checks with him for the next wee while. She will have her head circumference checked every 3 months by our GP - this is also to keep an eye on any potentially enlarging growths or nevi.

I am fairly certain my baby will be just fine. So far, she is a happy and bouncy wee thing. She is just getting into her solids finally, and seems to have great motor skills. With this new found skill of moving around, she has shown that she is developing just as normally as other children, and I have no doubt she will continue to do so.

Meet the Pocker.

My poor babies have all had the chicken pox. Horrible illness! We don't want to do that again, that's for sure.
There is a really interesting aspect to Olive having the chicken pox. The other two kids had spots mainly on their torso's, as Google tells me is the most common area for chicken pox distribution. However, Olive had hers mainly on her face. Her face was COVERED in them. Absolutely covered. But her nevus, and not just her bathing trunk one but even the small ones, seemed to 'reject' the chicken pox. If any pox did happen to make their way onto a nevus, it was only on the edge where it met the normal skin.
It is as though, because the chicken pox couldn't develop on the nevus skin, they had to go somewhere, so to her face it was!
I don't know the reasoning behind this, (I was never good at human biology at school!) but on posting this very discussion point in a nevus support group, one person had a very logical answer.

According to the paper this member found on chicken pox and , it says that 'of all the cell types tested, only the melanocytes appeared not infectable by the virus, and CMN are chock full of nevomelanocytes in the dermis, which maybe confers the protective effect on those areas of skin'.

So it appears that the nevus has some really neat traits, and make up as well. Food for thought!

Apparently the nevus looks the most dramatic at birth. This makes sense because newborns often take a while to ease into their colouring, so you would imagine it would be just the same for the 'different' skin.
Family and friends all comment (as do Eddie and I!) about how Olive's has definitely lightened. I wondered if that was perhaps more due to the fact that we are just used to it now. So I finally took some more photos (what a terrible mother, I haven't been taking monthy ones :-\) of her nevus, to compare.

This is one taken at 4 days old. The gauze was to protect her skin as it rubbed on her nappy and ripped and bled.

 

This one is taken today, at just over 6 months old.

 

 

Granted, the lighting is different (earliest one was at night with the light on, second one taken in natural light) but I think comparing the two we can easily say it HAS lightened! Especially around her bottom. You can see the hair at the top, and on her thighs, that wasn't there at birth but over the last few weeks especially has gotten very thick and grows in a wee swirl in the centre of her back. You can also see how the fat distribution on her thighs differs side to side. 

You can also see, just how squishy that tiny baby bum is! <3

Six months.

That's how long Olive has been here.

Where on earth did it go? Seriously. I am enjoying my baby far too much, and somebody has been skipping the clock on us, I am sure of it!

Though in saying that, the last 2-3 weeks have been a nightmare (well, an Olive sized nightmare, not a normal nightmare).

My normally great sleeper hit 5 months and whoever discovered the Five Month Sleep Regression knew their stuff. The child just stopped sleeping. She also started getting so nosy she would refuse feeds if they weren't offered in the comfort of her (MY! But that's a different story) darkened bedroom.

We decided to stay at home and get into a routine. A what? Exactly what Olive thought, too. Figured seeing as we were being hard-arsed parents, we would wipe out the swaddling too - I mean, she was unwrapping those pudgy arms at 5am so she didn't need it anymore. Right?

We had talking and tears, and singing and playing for up to an hour and a half, before Madam would sleep for a mere 45 minutes.

Ok, so that wasn't going to work..next trick.

A sleep site told me to buy a Cocoon wrap - all zippered up that she can't get out of. Waited the weekend for the courier to deliver. Monday morning, it arrives. Yay! Super excited, rip it out of the box, whack it on the baby. Good night, baby!

Baby eats it.

Next.

A wonderful friend gave us a Miracle Blanket to try. A nifty thing Baby Houdini wouldn't escape from! First go - Great Success! Asleep in 5 mins, slept for 2.5 hours! Second go - Fail. Awake for 2.5 hours, slept for 5 mins!

*Sigh*. My Good Baby was behaving like somebody else's Naughty Baby. (I don't breed Naughty Children, just so you know).

And here we are. Persisting with the Miracle Blanket, and still pretending that the Angel upstairs (who has taken 4, yes, FOUR hours to go to sleep today) is a Good Baby.

Well....actually...I lie. We aren't pretending - look at her!