Help From Behind The Scenes

My uncle Dan passed away Thursday, June 27th. The link to his obituary is here:

 http://www.horancares.com/obituary/Dan-F.-Nielsen/Centennial-CO/1221046

He was a wonderful, happy, and loving man and will be greatly missed.

Usually when you look back at your life you can see connections between events. You can spot the small actions or deeds that led to big life-changing ones and sit in wonder at how lucky you are. The past little while has been like that, except we have been able to see the blessings as they are happening. Our life has been blessed so greatly and every little detail seems so taken care of that we just strap on our seat belts and trust that our angel babies are helping us on our path.

First, my uncle Dan was diagnosed with Cancer 4 years ago, around the same time as my mom. Unfortunately, he recently lost his battle and returned to heaven. Before he passed away, he and my aunt made all their arrangements at Lucas' old job through him at Chapel Hill. He was able to save them a lot of money with a family discount on everything. Just as he finished their arrangements as well as those for other family members, he got his new job.

His new job came quickly and as a surprise when my sister in law mentioned a connection to a family who was big in the funeral industry in our area. Texts and phone calls and interviews were made and they offered Lucas a job, despite there not being an opening. So Lucas switched jobs to Horan and McConaty. When he told my Uncle about it, my uncle expressed that his original desire was to have his funeral services through Horan and McConaty but that they had planned to go through the other company for the savings. As soon as he could, Lucas started looking to see if he could transfer their information to the new place.

After only 2 months in his first position, Lucas was asked to interview for a promotion to be a Funeral Director. He did a great job, and they told him that would call him to let him know what they decided. That night we learned that my uncle's condition was worsening quickly and his time was going to be short on this earth, days or even hours. Lucas, despite waiting for an important call, called his managers and asked what could be done. They were able to work out the details and move his service over to the other company, and save them even more money while allowing my uncle to have what he really wanted for his service. They moved the contract over. Lucas got the promotion.

My Uncle Dan passed away later that week, surrounded by my aunt- the love of his life, all of his children, and all of his grandchildren. Because Lucas' promotion was so recent, he still had time to finish in his old position, so he was able to be there when my uncle passed away and ensure that he was well taken care of immediately after his passing. Then, because he was also recently promoted, they allowed him to be there for my family during the service, making sure that everything went smoothly and all they wanted happened just right.

Through small little blessings and perfect timing, Lucas was allowed the opportunity to help my uncle and his family from the very first step through the very end. I'm not sure anyone has ever had that before, from pre-planning, to being the one there when he passes on, to being able to serve them during the memorial.

It was so beautiful. My uncle Dan was a great man, and I love that in a small way, our family got to be there for him. It all felt so perfectly orchestrated, there is no question in my mind that there is someone greater than us at the wheel.

Another small blessing with all this timing is related to our coming bundle of joy.

When Lucas switched jobs, we lost insurance. He switched companies 90 days before our baby is supposed to be delivered, meaning that we would need to find insurance while he waited 90 days for his new insurance to begin. If I couldn't switch insurance immediately, I would have no way to pay for a specialist, for any further pre-natal care, or for the delivery. I would be taking marternity leave, but if possible I will stay home with the baby after he is born. This would depend on Lucas' new job. Luckily, after some luck, I was able to switch to my company insurance with no gap in coverage.

We learned that the coverage through my company insurance was MUCH MUCH better than anything we could have dreamed of. We would be saving ourselves probably 100K through this insurance as the extensive monitoring with this baby and then the delivery at 36 weeks is going to be very costly.

In addition to the coverage being great, we had to switch doctors with the change of insurance. We were not sure we wanted to do this, as we liked the plan our first doctor had to deliver early and the experience he had. But we were no longer covered at his practice, so we made the switch.

Days before my birthday we had our first appointment with the new doctor.
It was AMAZING. They were SO helpful, and compassionate, and thorough. They searched our history, they immediately began weekly non-stress-test testing on our baby with ultrasounds and bloodwork that for some reason, nobody else even tried. They immediately referred us to a specialist to go over our history and to help make a plan to deliver this baby.

It seemed, finally, that instead of hearing "bad luck" as the reason we lost Molly and Kellen, we were  with people who wanted to find us answers.
At our last appointment, our new doctor said, "This should not have happened to you. I cannot allow myself to believe that this was just bad luck two times so similarly. Something is happening, and I want to find out what that is. We will search everything. I will request more information from your other doctors. We will work with the specialists and make sure you get to bring a baby home."

And I suddenly realized that some doctors had told us they were carefully watching, they used the right words but didn't back it up with action, with questions, with a desire to help us. Until now. 

I have never felt so happy or lucky in my life.
This new team of doctors has eased my heart and mind so much that I have finally begun to believe that this baby is going to make it to us. I even bought him a bed and a little outfit.
About a week after we have the baby, Lucas' insurance will begin at his new job, and I will switch to coverage through his company. It is the same company as the old doctor.

If Lucas would not have switched jobs exactly when he did, we would not have had the time to have this wonderful change in doctors just in time to carefully monitor and deliver the baby. He also would not have been in the right place to help my uncle and his family through every step of his final days.

As all of these things keep happening, I have honestly just laughed out loud to myself because its the only way to express the gratitude I feel at knowing that we are being guided, taken care of, and loved. We feel like our Heavenly Father's will, though it is not what we always expect, is always the better  path. And I like to think that our little angels have helped everything to happen so perfectly.

We are so lucky.

And for your viewing pleasure, here are the most recent 3D/4D pictures of our little boy:

I cant wait to meet him!