Welcome Little Lucy!

My little lady and me

Daddy and his girl (notice she sleeps like a Churchill

Chelsea and her new baby sister

On August first we were blessed to meet our little angel, Lucille Rebekah Velasquez.

We found out at the beginning of December that we were expecting another baby. Although we had talked about adding to our little family, we had not yet decided for sure when we would try for another little one. It took a little while to get pregnant with Chelsea after we decided to have a baby so we assumed that once we decided we would be waiting for a little while again.

One night I was feeling queezy when I was getting ingredients out for dinner. Nothing sounded good to me. I made a simple dinner and put it on the table for Matt and Chelsea, but I just could not stomach eating anything...except for carrots. I wanted carrots and a lot of them. It was then that I thought I might be pregnant. I decided to buy a test and take it. Sure enough, we were expecting our little girl. I felt so blessed and so grateful that we were able to have another little one.

Not long after we found out that Matt was being transferred to San Diego for his job. This meant that he would be commuting three hours a day for work. He would leave for work before we woke up and many times wouldn't come home until after we were asleep. Of course this was about the time that I started getting really sick. I ended up going to the hospital for an IV because I couldn't keep anything down and was getting dehydrated. Fortunately I didn't stay that sick very long and although queezy quite often, I was mostly able to enjoy the rest of the pregnancy.

When I was 18 weeks along we went into our routine ultrasound. We were so excited to see our little one. We were surprised to find out that she was a girl. I was CONVINCED our little one was a boy. I left the ultrasound telling Matt that I was going to ask for another one to make sure. Little did I know what was in store.

Right after the ultrasound I had a little accident where I burned my hand really bad. I was waiting for a phone call from my doctor about when to come in to get them checked. I answered a call from the doctor's office and was surprised to hear my midwife on the other end. She called to tell me they found something of concern in our baby's ultrasound. They found a spot on her heart, called an echogenic intracardiac focus. She told me that usually it's nothing of concern, but in some cases it could be a sign of chromosomal abnormality such as Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18. They scheduled me for another ultrasound to take a more in depth look at her. At our grade 2 ultrasound they found the focus on the heart again as well as echogenic bowels which is another sign of chromosomal abnormality. We met with a genetic counselor about the possibility of a problem. I worried, I prayed, and I learned as much as I could. Matt had faith that everything was going to be okay. I wasn't as optimistic.

The more I learned and the more I prayed I came to a few conclusions:

1) God is really in control. In the end I could try to control things as much as I wanted, but in the end He really is in control. It's a lesson I've tried to learn and have had to learn...and relearn...many times over. It was so wonderful to learn it again at this time. I've been able to more fully enjoy being a mom, being a wife, and being a friend. In addition I think it also helped to prepare me for what our family is going through right now.

2) The more I've read about chromosomal abnormalities the more I've understood how amazing those people who have them are. They really are amazing people and are special, tender spirits. If you want to read about one mother's experience with a daughter with Down's Syndrome, this is a great blog.

3) My Father in Heaven knows me. He loves me. He loves me too much to let me stay just the way I am now. He wants me to be better. Sometimes that means going through difficult or painful experiences. He doesn't joy in my sorrow but he does find joy in finding joy amid the sorrow.

4) My Savior, Jesus Christ, KNOWS me. Knows me personally. He loves me and loves my family. He loves my baby and knows her as well.

So for the next few months we lived in faith that whatever was supposed to happen would happen and that we would love and cherish our little girl no matter what.

In June we were surprised to find out that Matt was being laid off from his job. I was feeling overwhelmed with everything going on. Our family moved at the end of June to Seattle to stay with my family until Matt could find a new job. We have had such a whirlwind last couple of months. Luckily everything seemed to be progressing well with our little one. We had a follow up ultrasound to check on her right before we moved to Seattle. The echogenic bowel is sometimes a sign that the baby's growth will be restricted so they wanted to follow up. She was doing great. They told us she still had echogenic bowels but that the echogenic intracardiac focus in her heart was now gone.

Towards the end of the pregnancy I felt so big. I felt like there was no more room for this little girl to grow. Matt was convinced that she was going to come soon, but I still had a while till my due date so I wasn't so convinced. A few days before she was born I started having some contractions, but nothing I or my midwife was too concerned about. A couple of days before she was due I started to have them more regularly and they were PAINFUL. With Chelsea my water broke before I ever had a contraction so this was all new to me. I waited patiently for the contractions to get closer together, but they always stayed about 7-10 minutes apart. They would go away during the day but would keep me up all night. I still wasn't convinced she was coming soon though because I was still a couple weeks away from my due date.

The day before Lucy was born I had a feeling that I may have her the next day. I had a feeling that if my contractions started again that night I would be going to the hospital since each night the contractions seemed to get worse. Sure enough at around six that night they started. I slept for a little while, then woke up to a very painful contraction. The contractions didn't get closer together but they kept getting progressively more painful. My water started to leak so at six the next morning we decided to call the midwife who told us to come in. We left the house at 7:30.

The trip to the hospital this time was much different than the last time I was pregnant. That time my contractions had just started so they weren't so painful. This time I was in a lot of pain. I told Matt to shut up when he tried to crack a joke and I came pretty close to using some bad words.

We got to the hospital and were admitted pretty quickly. They checked me and I was dialated to a three. I thought I would be so much more progressed with how painful my contractions were. The nurse asked what I wanted for pain management and I pretty much begged her for an epidural. I had been doing a lot of research on natural childbirth and thought I wanted to do it naturally but by the time I got to the hospital natural childbirth was far from my mind. I got my epidural soon after and while they were giving it to me my water broke. When it broke the water was green, meaning there was meconium in it so they asked people to come in to help the baby in case she couldn't breathe. This made us nervous. Chelsea had the same problem and when she was born her heart rate was at 50 bpm and she didn't breathe for a while. It was one of the scariest times of our lives. We had faith in the people working with us and just hoped for the best. Once I got the epidural and laid back down they checked me again and I was dialated to a six! By that time I was starting to feel the epidural kick in.

Not long after that I started feeling some really painful pressure. I thought it was just another contraction and that my epidural hadn't fully kicked in yet so I just ignored it. But I felt it again so I told the nurse. She checked me and I was ready to push already. I was scared because the epidural hadn't fully kicked in. My midwife had another patient with no epidural who was just about ready to push as well. She told me to do one test push to see if the baby was ready to come. I did and boy did she come fast. I pushed and felt so much more pain than I did with Chelsea since the epidural wasn't fully kicked in yet. There was a lot more screaming and crying then there was the first time I did this. I didn't think I could do it, but the nurse and Matt were wonderful. Telling me I could do it and encouraging me. I pushed three times and wanted to give up but they assured me she was almost here. I heard the nurse say, "she's vigorous, give me a blanket" which meant she would be able to breathe when she came. One more push and she was here. I heard her sweet little cry as they laid her on my belly. I just stared at her and cried. Matt and I both did. It was the most amazing experience. I just held her and stared in her sweet eyes. I was so grateful for this amazing little person who just came to join our family. By then it really didn't matter to me if she had a chromosomal abnormality or not. The next morning the pediatrician gave her a full exam and told us he saw no sign of her having anything wrong with her and for that we were very grateful. She was 6 lb 15 oz of perfection.

We named her Lucille Rebekah. Lucille is the name of my grandmother who is amazing. She is such a strong person who has endured so much and experienced so much and really is one of the most amazing women you will ever meet. We are so grateful for her.

Things with Lucy have really been amazing. Having her was amazing, I have been recovering so much better than I did last time, breastfeeding has gone so much better than last time, and Lucy has been such a happy content baby.

Chelsea has been a perfect big sister. She came into the hospital and exclaimed, "Baby Peanut! Cute." She loves her sister. She loves to help and loves to share with her. We have been so blessed with such amazing little girls.

We have been blessed with an amazing family. In the end that's what really matters.