A Thousand Years

There is a very good reason I have been on hiatus,  I promise. The problem was, I wasn't allowed to write about someone who had completely stolen our hearts. Let me back up for you. You see, in December of 2013 we suffered a miscarriage. We continued to try and conceive but without success. We never sought medical treatments. We were never told that we couldn't have kids. We just felt we were being led in a different direction.

We thought we were being led to was foster care. So we listened and became licensed foster parents. And then we waited and waited for a phone call that never came.

Then one day, Jerod came home and told me about a brave girl who was looking for an adoptive family for her baby.  The first words out of my mouth were, "that's our baby".

Side note, I want to take a moment to express how courageous this decision was for her. It's been five long months for this process and I can't express enough how thankful I am for this birth mom. She is brave, strong, and selfless.

I can't explain how strongly I felt about this baby before I had even met him. Everything on my mind, heart, and body was telling me this was our path. The path we had been on for almost two years. So as we met the birth mom and learned about who she was, we started getting excited for a baby to come into our family in August 2015.  However, he was too excited to wait, so he decided to come three months early. Our son, Joseph Henderson, was born on May 6, 2015, at 1 lb 7oz .

I thought I knew what love was, but I really had no idea until this boy came into our lives. It was instant. I was able to be there the moment he took his first breath. We have been able to be there everyday since. We have been there to see him grow, to see him open his eyes, to feed him, to give him his bath.  We talk to him, we read to him, we hold him, we love him.

His five months on Earth haven't exactly been a cake walk, but he's given us more joy then we could ever have asked for. While there are rough days, there are plenty of good days with lots of smiles.

He's made some amazing progress, but we aren't out of the woods yet. He is currently still in the NICU receiving the BEST care. I could go on for days about how much we have loved the nurses and doctors at his hospital. God has provided him with a second family through the staff.  Until then, we are counting the days until he can come home with us. 

So there you have it. The reason I have been MIA for almost 4 months. I haven't even had time to thrift lately, *gasp*, but I can tell you that I see this blog containing lots of thrifted baby clothes. So keep checking in with us. We definitely aren't finished with surprises. 

Love, 

Ashlie, Jerod, and Joseph.