Hi my name is Amanda Arasia-Vasquez.

Iam pregnant with my husband’s first child, my third. She is very active and strong in my tummy! She moves around most of the day and some of the night. Her name is Petra Flora Vasquez. She was a twin though we lost the second baby early on before we even knew the sex.

Since the beginning of my pregnancy I was diagnosed with hypermesis it affects 2% of pregnant women and unfortunately leaves me extremely dehydrated and fatigued. I have been off work since February 28th. I have gone through so many treatments and infusions and hospital stays and nothing helps. I’ve changed my diet well what I can keep down any way. Fortunately our daughter has been getting enough nutrients from me and that is a blessing. Unfortunately that leaves my husband and I in debt and with shut off notices while I fight for my emergency leave funds from work. Though this is not what this page is for I’m just giving our whole journey. We will continue to budget and figure out our bills. This is about Petra Flora.

At 22 weeks we found out our daughter has bone dysplasia. They did not know what kind so we had to schedule an amniocentesis at around 24 weeks. This is a procedure where they put and extremely long needle into you stomach and extract amniotic fluid to test, this helps him figure out what kind of bone dysplasia our daughter has and whether it’s fatal or not. They also informed me that in Michigan after 25 weeks it’s illegal to terminate pregnancy so by the time we would get the results back whether she has a fatal dysplasia or not, we would not be able to intervene with my pregnancy. Not saying that I would just I would no longer have that option.

We received the results around 25 weeks and she has what’s called Thanatophoric Dyspepsia (meaning death bearing) so the dysplasia she has is fatal, meaning she could die inside of me before I give birth, or during birth, or shortly after birth. Babies who have this type of fatal dysplasia usually only live a few hours, if that, after birth on a respirator. She has no room to grow lungs in her body. Her stomach is abnormally large because her organs are pushing and growing and cannot fit within her small chest and rib cage area. Her head is abnormally large. This dysplasia is not hereditary. It’s like a one in 1 million chance that randomly you have a baby who has this dysplasia. She also has something wrong with our heart. It happens to one out of 100 babies and it has nothing to do with her dysplasia but when babies, do you have phone dysplasia you see this happened to their hearts more often then healthy babies. The hole in her heart comes from the back of her heart and connects her right and left ventricle, which in a normal baby would make the blood start to pump out into their lungs and they would need medicine for this to pee out the blood, but she has no lungs so the only other way the blood could go is out of her aorta, which is at the top of the heart, and with a normal baby, you would do open-heart surgery, but because her chest is so small she would not live through that even if she was living on a ventilator with no lungs so they would have to go in between her rib cage and put a band around her aorta to limit the amount of blood that can come out of it. Though because of her bone dysplasia, she will probably not live long enough for the heart defect to affect her in anyway.

With this being said, I am sitting here about 28 weeks pregnant. With full knowledge that I am going to be carrying my baby until she dies which I feel is going to be at birth because right now she is not having any problems. She is very lively an active every day and my stomach and living peacefully and just fine with the dysplasia and her heart defect because she’s inside of me so she does not need to use her lungs and her heart is pumping fine while she’s inside of me. Though, when it comes time to deliver her, she will not have lungs to breathe, and even on a ventilator. Eventually, her heart defect will catch up with her.

With a heavy heart I am make this page because I’m asking for help. My family and my husband’s family as well as my children and my husband and I are devastated. I have no control over anything in my life right now no control over my pregnancy no control over my health, mental and physical. I feel the only thing I could do is plan a celebration of life for our daughter. It’s extremely hard to plan this while she’s alive and well and kicking inside me as we speak. But I do know that we as a family are going to need this and I doubt that I will be able to plan anything after delivering and losing her. Hi no I’m going to be a mess. I’m a mess now. But this is the one thing I can control well if I have the money to control it I would definitely already have everything planned out and paid for so that way I don’t have to deal with it later, but because we are behind on everything, and I am still waiting and fighting for my pay. I know I won’t be able to afford to give her any type of funeral or memorial. I do not have the details of exactly where and what I want to do yet. I do have some ideas. I have called around and check the prices on some things.

To wrap up this post, I’m just asking for donations so that I might be able to afford a celebration of life for our little baby girl. Maybe some of the hospital bills I’ve had to endure during this my insurance does not cover it all. If this is something you’re interested in giving to then by all means, please do and thank you. If you cannot give, I understand and love the words of encouragement that everyone has been sharing with me. I’ve never planned a funeral. I’ve never dealt with a loss like this. Anything helps whether it be a dollar or encouraging words. Thank you for taking the time to read and understand our situation. ❤️