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Olivia's story

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Amanda Beukes tells us about Olivia’s condition, called Focal Femoral Hypoplasia

Only a mother can understand the feeling of love when you hear your baby cry for the first time. Our little girl, Olivia, joined us in this world on 22nd May 2008 with a very lady-like little cry.

She weighed only 2.8kg’s. I could hardly believe that the little girl I had waited so long for had finally arrived. The hardest part was knowing that we would have to stand by her in the future when she would have to endure painful surgery to her right leg.

Olivia was diagnosed with a condition called Focal Femoral Hypoplasia, which meant that her right leg (femur) was approximately 2cm’s shorter than her left leg (femur). This was the shocking news we received the day we went for our 3D scan to find out what our baby would look like.

Never did we expect to face the type of news we did. We came home in disbelief and tried to figure out how we would one day help our little girl face the challenges she would in this world.

Many tears were shed and finally after lots of prayers we realised that God gives “special babies” to “special families”, and that’s exactly what we received. We received a “special” gift from God and we are grateful that he chose us to look after an angel as special as Olivia. She is a blessing to us.

We’ve received lots of support from friends and family as well as our church and her doctors and we can’t begin to explain to each and every one of them how they’ve made our journey to Olivia’s birth one of excitement and happiness and not of anxiousness and worries.

Olivia is surrounded by a family who see past her “condition” and offers her the love she needs to become the strong little girl that will one day endure pain in order to lead a normal life in society.

I wish all families who are currently going through the same thing all the strength they so badly need. There is a great lack of support groups for people who have children with the same condition.

The unfortunate thing is that the condition Olivia has is very rare and we’ve only managed to come across one family that is going through the same journey and we are truly grateful for their support.

Right now our biggest challenge is to be the best parents we could possibly be to Olivia and for that we say thank you for a magazine that helps all mommies and even daddies to feel less alone in their new world of parenthood.

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