Go to work with dad day

Dad took me to the library at MVNU with him so he could get some research done. I was hoping for some picture books, but all he read was boring books. He did take me for my first visit to an art gallery while on campus. He took me around so I could see every piece of artwork. My favorite was this one called "712", dad knew it was my favorite cause I made all kinds of cute sounds when I was looking at it. Maybe I'll be artist someday...

My Birth - Chapter Eight

Eventually everyone left for the night and it was just the three of us in the room together. It was our first night as a young family together; a great night, but a really hard night.
Some time during the middle of the night one of our nurses came into the room and sat down. She told us that she was a pastor’s daughter, just like Lucy, and that her father has a brother who has downs. She then teared up and said that she couldn’t imagine life without her uncle. Now I know that God was with us that entire night, and that He is always with us, but sometimes he sends a messenger to remind us that He is there. That nurse coming into our room with that story was the first sign we received that God was there for us and that He was never going to leave us.

My Birth - Chapter Seven

Obviously, the shock of finding out your kid might have downs was completely horrible. What made it worse was to then have to go into the waiting room where you just announced the birth of your baby and have to announce that they think Lucy might have downs.
A few minutes later everybody came back into the room and marveled at our precious daughter in such a perfect way. We have the best family in the world and they showed it that night (not to mention every night since). Mandy and I each got to hold her for a couple of minutes and I got to say the first prayer over her young life before having to put her back in the incubator for the rest of the night because of her low body temperature. All we wanted to do was hold her, but for that night we just got to watch and pray.

This is me learning the O part of O-HI-O! 

My Birth - Chapter Six

Soon after all the craziness of the birth was over I finally got to get a good look at Lucy though she was still in the incubator. As I stared at her in wonder of how beautiful she was I soon thought to myself that Lucy had downs. But what did I know, this was the first time I ever saw a baby that was five minutes old? Nobody said anything to me, so I wasn’t going to be the dad who asked if his baby had down syndrome.
We had a lot of family out in the waiting room so I went out and did the dad job of telling everybody that we had a girl. Since the nurses said they wanted to clean some stuff up first before I brought everybody back I told them we would get them into see her as soon as possible.
The nurses took forever to get everything cleaned up and they kept telling us that our family had to wait just a bit longer before coming back. Finally one of the nurses came in and told us that they thought Lucy had down syndrome. While being one of the greatest nights of our lives, it also began to be one of the hardest nights of our lives.

My Birth - Chapter Five

When the doctor came in he was all business. He got all his equipment together and then sat down at the foot of the bed. He then put both sides of the forceps together and then another piece on them to hold them together. A forceps delivery is a sight to see!
Once he had those things around Lucy’s head it didn’t take long and there she was.
It was crazy cause the doctor said it snapped. Her cord snapped! On her way out the umbilical cord snapped in two, there was no need for someone to cut it; she took care of that herself (I guess that hardly ever happens). The doctor quickly got the cord from around her neck, tossed her on Mandy’s belly for a second and then off to the incubator to get worked on by the nurses cause she was blue and really not breathing yet.
The nurses got her breathing pretty quick and we got to hear her cry for the first time.
There she was for the very first time. Born at 11:04 PM on Sunday night June 12, 2005 in Knox Community Hospital. She was 7 lbs 3 oz. and was 20 inches long. She had strawberry blond hair and she had a hook mark across the left side of her face from the forceps. She was named Lucy Kay Peterson.

Almost forgot...

A week ago we received Lucy's first evaluation from the county's Help Me Grow program. It said for all her developmental things that she was within range for a child her age (any child, not just ones with downs). That's real good news. Thank you Father!

She also likes to smile a lot at mom now. Not too much luck with dad yet.

My BIrth - Chapter Four

Well Mandy got to start pushing and that was exciting! It was a lot better being active working with the contractions then trying to just deal with them, which is what you do until you are fully dilated. I’m not sure how long we were into the pushing process, but along the way the nurse told us we needed to stop pushing because Lucy’s heart rate was dropping. The nurse was calm about it, so we stayed calm, but it did make you a little nervous.
She explained to us that it could be that the cord was wrapped around her neck or it could be nothing. After the heart rate went up again Mandy started pushing again, but every time we started making progress Lucy’s heart rate kept dropping, so we kept taking breaks to get her heart rate up again. To be honest, I (dad) was a bit scared at this point, but I’m pretty good at blocking things out.
After almost two hours of that process repeating itself over and over again the nurse said she thought Lucy was far enough down for the doctor to get her with the forceps. So she left and called the doctor and we knew the time had come for Lucy to join the world.

My Birth - Chapter Three

From the time we left our house until we walked in the front door of the hospital Mandy had at least three contractions and the hospital is only a ten minute drive from our house. One of our fears in going to the hospital was that we would be sent home because she wasn’t far enough along. The nurse told us after Mandy’s first exam (5:30 PM) that she was only 1 ½ centimeters dilated and 100% effaced and we were pretty down thinking they would send us home, even if they didn’t we thought we would be in for a long night with such a long ways to go to 10 centimeters.
To our surprise the nurse told us we were in active labor and that they would start getting a room ready for us right away. So we started calling family, but we told them to take their time cause we had a long way to go. An hour later we had to call back and tell them to hurry cause she was now almost five centimeters. By 9:30 PM they had to really hurry because Mandy was now fully dilated and they were telling here to push. Both granddads were almost late to the hospital because they thought they had plenty of time to get there.
It was the oddest thing for us when they said it was time to push and they started rearranging the bed. We had been waiting for this moment for nine months and we couldn’t believe it was finally there. We were so excited and we knew in the next few hours we would meet our baby daughter.

Today's my mom's birthday!

Happy Birthday Mom! I Love You! You're the Best!

Guess what I found?

I thought I would take a little break from my dad's stories to tell you that my hand found my mouth this past week. I especially like the thumb part of it to suck on, but I can't always find it just yet.

My Birth-Chapter Two-

I know chapter two is a big jump from the first chapter, but I had to make that jump or there would be like 80 chapters in this story. Anyway, we pick up the story again as Mandy wakes up early on Sunday morning, June 12th. (By the way this is dad talking and unless otherwise noted the “My Birth” stories will be told by me.)
Well Mandy woke up early Sunday morning complaining of back pain. I got real excited and asked if this was it. She said all the books and information sheets we had said it is not real labor if you only feel it in your back and that’s the only place she felt it at. So we got up and went to church where I’m the pastor and Mandy leads the singing.
Needless to say Mandy had a rough time leading the singing that Sunday morning. Whenever she had a contraction while singing she would mess up a bit which I think is pretty normal. After one of the songs she said something along the lines of how thankful she was that she is a part of a church that still accepts you when you make mistakes. The whole time she was saying this I was laughing inside cause I knew those weren’t mistakes she was making, they were contractions she was having.
After church Mandy still wasn’t convinced she was in labor so we went to Taco Bell with Jamie and Amber. Mandy didn’t look to well, but she made it through dinner without letting on to anybody that she was having any problems. We then went home where Mandy did some laundry, packed her bags, and took a short nap. After two phone calls to the hospital and her contractions (still only in her back) getting within two and a half minutes a apart we decided to go to the hospital. The picture on this post was taken just before we left for the hospital.

My Birth - Chapter One

Most of my life since I have been born has been covered on this blog, but I thought I would have my dad tell you the story of my birth, from what I hear and remember it was quit the traumatic experience. Well, take it away dad...
It was sometime last October when we first found out that we were expecting Lucy. At the time we didn’t know if we would be having a boy or a girl. In my misguided way of thinking back then I was actually hoping for a boy and if we had one I wanted to name him Hobbes, but no one else really liked that name.
Soon enough we found out we were having a girl and we were really excited because we knew we were going to name her after Mandy’s grandma, Lucy Marcum. You should have seen the look on her face when we told her that was what we were going to do. Oh, I happen to have a picture of that moment, here it is: