Doctor Visit

I went to the doctor this week and they told me I'm now 13 lbs 4 ounces and I'm over 24 inches long. They also told me I needed some shots and I ended up with four of them that day. Dad said he never heard me scream like that before and I told him I never had to go through pain like that before. So as punishment for daddy and mommy making me go through that, one time a day I won't stop crying unless one of them holds me while standing up and while bouncing me for at least twenty to thirty minutes. Slowly their learning I'm in charge.

I'm shy 

All Smiles 

No more pictures! 

A Prayer for Lucy

O Father,
Would you protect her eyes,
so she may see what you would have her see.
Would you protect her ears,
so she may hear your voice.
Would you protect her mouth,
so she may speak your words.
O Father,
Would you protect her hands,
so she may serve you with them.
Would you protect her feet,
so she may dance for you with them.
Would you protect her lips,
so she may smile with the joy you have given her.
O Father,
Would you protect her mind,
so she may think your thoughts
Would you protect her heart,
so she may always love what you love
Would you protect her stomach,
so you may always be her bread of life.
Amen.

California Here We Come

Well, tomorrow I take my first trip out of Ohio. Mommy and I are going to CA to visit our good friends Carey and Madi. Daddy got us a special present since he was going to be out of town too. Mommy's pretty nervous because she really doesn't want to make me uncomfortable. I keep telling her I'll be fine but it doesn't seem to help. So if you would all pray for our journey I'm sure she would appreciate it. Hollywood here I come.

Mom and dad say I'm beautiful. 

Dad likes taking picutes. 

Update and Prayer Request

Well I went to my monthly physical therapy appointment yesterday and the therapist didn't know what advice to give mom and dad. She said I was doing so well that they should just keep doing what they are doing. I guess I am developmentally right on track for any kid my age so that is a big big praise!

Mom and dad say that I am one big miracle. They believe God is doing a great work in me. And since God is in the miracle business I ask you to pray for this guy named Mark Palmer. He is a church planter near OSU in Columbus. Though Dad has never met him before he has a ton of respect for him. A couple of girls who go to his church actually pray for me regularly (Mandy and Kelli, I can't wait to meet you this week!). Mark has a real serious form of cancer and dad and I pray for his complete healing nearly every morning. Would you join with us?

He actually has a blog that tells his story as well. To check it out go here.

Somebody get this guy away from me. 

I'm a happy baby! 

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.