Life with Liv, Lai, + Lera

When Cody and I arrived home Wednesday, after having Lera Tuesday, we sat the girls down and shared the news of   Lera’s gift. We had prayed about this day/conversation since we found out the possibility. Hours after Lera was born God finally shared with me how we were supposed to tell them. I wrote it down while in the hospital…this is how our conversation went. “Mommy and Daddy are excited to share something with you…Lera was born with a gift! She has one extra chromosome. We all have chromosomes even Lucy the dog does. We have 46, but Lera has 47. There is no need to be scared or worried because with Lera’s extra chromosome it makes her extra loving, extra sweet, extra caring, extra trusting, extra cute, extra funny and the extra, best little sister and friend! She is more similar to us than different! God knew ever before mommy or daddy was born that you 3 girls would be our daughters and that you three would be sisters! He made you the way you are to prepare you for this world...

                      Meet our precious baby girl, LERA MICHELLE! Cody and I are choosing to share Lera’s story to hopefully encourage others that may have a similar journey and help change the way the world views Down Syndrome! At 11 weeks our OB at the time noticed a thickened nuchal fold and suggested we do a genetic blood test. Honestly, we didn’t believe anything would be detected with our baby, we were just looking forward to finding out the gender so early. The results came back, and the screening detected a 76% predictive value for Trisomy 21. Definitely not something we ever expected. And the way it was presented to Cody and me made us leave the appointment scared, confused, and in denial of the results we had just been given. We cried, we were mad, we prayed and processed and prayed some more. We shared the results with our closest family and friends and just like us, they prayed over our baby daily. After t...