My Parents Visit

My parents told me they were coming to visit us. They live in So. Cal and took a drive to the Bay to see us. They arrived on the 20th. I was looking forward them visiting. I needed them for support and they were there to do that. On June 21st, It was a very hot day and we decided to take a drive to Half Moon Bay. I drank so much water before we left I knew I would have to use the restroom during our drive. I made the mistake in not telling Shane I had to go soon enough. I held it for a while and I was going to burst. I almost had Shane pull over and I was going to go on the side of the road. A porta potty never looked so good.

We arrived at this great place for Clam Chowder. We sat out in the patio of the restauarant and loooked at the beautiful beach. We saw whales and enjoyed the time.

We enjoyed the day by driving and sight seeing. We had dinner and then drove home. My parents told us to keep being positive and don't give up faith in God. Miracles happen and we should keep believing in God.

UC San Francisco

We received the results for the amnio and they were normal. The test also confirmed we were having a baby girl. The Dr. that did the echo cardiogram said the heart looked fine. We were there for over two hours. We were both so nervous about receiving our amnio test and going to the echo cardiogram appt. Shane and I prayed and kept our faith. We were so happy to hear our news. The battle is not over it's just the beggining.

We have a consultation appointment with the University of Cal San Francisco on Tuesday, July 8th. We have been spending a lot of time on the internet as well as networking with some really great and nice people regarding this appointment. We are trying to think of every conceiveable question we could ask that will help us make a decision, if one is necessary. We are hopeful and have Faith god will watch over us and Nayeli.

We want to say thank you to Rosie, as well as Amy Miles for their help and support. Both have been wonderful! We also want to thank the Breath of Hope group. Everyone on the group is wonderful!

"I Love you"

On June 14th, we started the process of deciding on the name for our daughter. It took us until June 22nd, 2008, to decide on a name for our baby girl. Liz had a great idea and said we should each come up with 10 names we liked. After we created our name lists, we took turns reading one name each until we got through all ten names. I don't think either of us really had any names left after the deletion process, so the deliberation continued. After at least a week of this, Liz had come up with a very beautiful, rare, and original name. The name is Nayeli, which means "I love you," in the Zapoteco language. Liz's father is from Oaxaca,Mexico (it is a very beautiful area), so the name was a perfect fit. We also found that in Arabic, it means "Highness and Grace." Some really great meanings and definitely things we thought of our daughter. Today, we named our daughter, Nayeli Faith Nelson!

18 Week Ultrasound

On June 4th. 2008, we had our 18 week ultrasound. During the ultrasound, the technician seemed to be spending a lot of time looking at the chest and heart area. We started to get concerned, and that level of concern mounted as the technician told us the Dr. would be in to speak with us. Before this appointment, we had discussed in great detail if we wanted to know the sex of our baby. We had decided to ask the technician to write it on a piece of paper, seal in an envelope, and give it to us. Our anniversary was on May 27th and we went to Catalina Island with the intent of having a nice annivsary, but we got sick and it pretty much ruined our trip. So we planned to take our ultrasound results and have a belated anniversary dinner where we would also open the envelope given to us by the technician.

Then, the Dr. came in and gave us the bad news. We asked her if there was a problem and she told us there was. We then asked her if it was serious and she said it was. She asked is to be patient so she take take a closer look at things and give us a more definitive answer. I started to cry, I looked at Shane and we held each others hand very tightly. After a while, she stopped looking at the ultrasound and explained. She told is our baby had severe Left Side Diaphragmatic Hernia, liver up. It was weird because all she said was liver up. The Dr. said that UCSF has a surgery procedure that could help our baby while in utereo called Tracheal Occlusion. The Dr. said they would have to measure her Lung to Head Ratio (LHR). After the Dr. left the room to let us sit there together and soak up this information, we held each other and cried, we decided to open the envelope and it revealed we had a growing baby girl.

The Dr. informed me that an amnio needed to be done for us to be seen at UCSF. I was so scared but trusted in God that he would help me through this. I held Shane's hand while they did the procedure. I almost passed out. We had to wait two weeks for the results. The Dr. also told us I would have to have a echo cardiogram done on our baby before we go to UCSF. The Dr. shcheduled for me to have a echo cardiogram on our baby on June 10th.

On our way home that day, we decided together we would not give up faith and hope, and do as much as we could to learn about CDH and give our daughter the best chance possible. Our journey of positive thought, faith, hope and prayer had started.