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Olivia Marie

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On May 1, 2013, my husband and I gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Olivia. She was born with bilateral upper limb deficiency, meaning she has no forearms or hands on either side. Olivia is fortunate in that she does have 2 small fingers on her left side. Their strength and functionality are not that great, but she has them nonetheless and they help her more than we could have imagined. We found out during the NT scan of this anomaly. We were faced with the option to terminate the pregnancy and were also told they couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t have any other “issues”. We obviously wanted to take the chance, though we were terrified because we had no idea what to expect. We’d fallen in love with her already and that was that.
We had several pregnancy issues in the past, our very first ending at 20 weeks because our baby girl had anencephaly. We then had two miscarriages after that, at 8 weeks each time, before finally getting pregnant with Olivia and the pregnancy holding so needless to say, we were ecstatic and not letting go! A ton of genetic and chromosomal testing was done because of the prior incidences and of course the hiccup in this pregnancy. Everything came back normal. This was a “freak accident” and there were no reasons or answers to give us as to why. We went through an array of emotions before her arrival.
Once she got here, everything went out the window. She’s perfect and here we are 14 months later and she never ceases to amaze us with her stubbornness and driven personality to figure things out. However, as she grows and gets older, everyday tasks we take for granted will become increasingly difficult for her. It’s been mutually decided amongst myself, my husband, and the prosthetic company that we will not do anything to her left side because nothing will ever or can ever compare to what she has in those two fingers for touching, sensory. The right side will be getting the prosthesis. Our goal in sharing our story with everyone is to help raise funds to assist in providing her with what she needs that insurance won’t cover, and to also bring awareness to those who know nothing about it and comfort to those also going through something similar to this.
We appreciate any help, whether it be by donation, or just by spreading the word and sharing our story.