267 Days

267 Days. That's how long we called Cardinal Glennon home.  For 267 days we walked down this hallway. 

These room brought us so many firsts. First bath, first diaper change, first sneeze, first shots, first bottle, first Christmas. 

It also brought us a lot of firsts that terrified us. First fever, first cold, first ventilator, first desat, first heart rate drop. 

But on January 28th, we left everything we'd become comfortable with and headed to Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital. You might think, "Yes! This is wonderful news!" And yes, it is wonderful for him. This means that Joseph is healthy enough to get out of the hospital. It means that we are closer to home then we have ever been. It means that he's basically been a rockstar since the tracheotomy. 

But, it doesn't mean that I wasn't scared. 

For 267 days we have developed relationships with doctors and nurses. Those doctors and nurses loved Joseph like their own and became a part of our family. I am not sure I will ever be able to thank them enough. 

This journey has been long and at times rough. We couldn't be there every single minute of every single day, but these women were. They were there to answer our phone calls at any hour and put up with my momma bear attidtude when worry and stress had taken over me. These nurses listened to me vent, cry, laugh, and hold me up when I lost hope. 

I have watched them cuddle Joseph and love him, and I have also seen them save his life when he decided to stop breathing. These women mean more to me then they will ever know. They gave Joseph a better life and never gave up on him. They never gave up on us. 

Leaving that day was incredibly hard, but so rewarding. It took a small village to pack us up (you accumulate a lot of stuff in 8.5 months!), but Joseph was ready. In fact, he loved the attention, the ambulance ride, and his first breath of fresh air. 

We have been at Ranken for a few weeks now and his progress has been incredible. He received his helmet a few days before discharge to help reshape his head. He spent too many days checking out the cute nurses and has developed a right side preference. Doctors predict he will only need it for a few months, but as always things could change. 

Right now, Joseph is receiving amazing daily speech, phsychial, and occupational therapy at Ranken.  He also has enjoyed new visitors, meeting friends for the first time, and amazing activities the hospital puts on for their patients.  He is able to move about in a stroller and we can roam around the facility as we please. Just to see him in a stroller is such a joy.

And he's getting special perks like puppy grams. Yes, that's right, it's a real thing.

He is still not sure about his little sister, but we're pretty confident they are going to love each other.

 

We don't know how long we will be at Ranken. We do know that we are closer to home then we've ever been and it feels really good. There is always a chance if he gets sick he could end up back at Cardinal Glennon for awhile, but for now, this is our new home. We are so proud of Joseph and we could not be more thankful. 

January was a busy month. With the transfer of Joseph and the birth of our daughter Eliza, Jerod and I are incredibly thankful. One year during a bible study I chose to focus on the word JOY. I cannot believe how much joy has come from just in one year's time.  This year has been a roller coaster and unpredictable, but worth every single moment. God is so good. 

Lots of love, 

Ashlie

Control

A lot of you wonderful, caring, amazing, and thoughtful people have recently asked the following questions: "How's Joseph?" and "When is he coming home?"

I am here to answer these questions.  

Joseph has done a lot of growing lately. Except in his neck. He still doesn't have a neck, only chins. 

And sleeping is still one of his favorite activities. 

Sleeping has also become bonding time with dad. 

There have been many changes. Most of you were aware that back in September we were just waiting for hernia and circumcision surgery to go home.  Our surgery was scheduled. We were on a nasal cannula and just crushing it. 

But life happens. As it often does. And Joseph caught two viruses which were basically just colds. Colds to most normal full term babies, but very dangerous to him. He had to go on back on a oscillator and nitric oxide just to keep his lungs going.  

We weren't sure if he was going to make it. I had no control. I didn't realize how much I liked being in control until this moment. Until I realized I couldn't make it better, couldn't make it go away. 

But like Joseph has done his entire life, he fought. He got better. We started to improve again. He got back on CPAP and even on nasal cannula. The surgery team was going to asses him again for surgery, then discharge. 

As surgery approached, our progress came to a stop. He started to go backwards again. Back on CPAP, back to vent. No control. 

Joseph's doctors (who btw we have nicknamed the Dream Team because we <3 them so much) sat us down on Monday to tell us that Joseph was going to need a trachea and he needed it soon. 

No promises that it would work, nothing else that we could do to help him. No control. 

I couldn't quite wrap my brain around the situation. We were so close to home. How could we end up in a conversation that involved the words, "survival rate"? My sadness quickly turned into anger. How in the world could God bring us this miracle just to rip it away from us? How could he let us lose so much? 

After throwing a huge pity party I finally realized something else. I have never had control. Not ONCE in this entire situation. Not even when it came to his adoption. God has been in control this entire time. He has allowed us to be in Joseph's life. He has allowed the moments of pure joy. Joy that is so unexplainable. 

I am grateful that we have someone to read a bedtime story to because I didn't think it was ever going to happen. 

Yes, it has been a bumpy road, but he has given us so many more blessings than bumps. We have been able to be apart of this amazing kid's life. Through Joseph, God has taught us how to love, how to be strong, and how to trust

And guess what? Joseph fought through surgery like a champion. He did better than expected. He was so brave. Much braver than his momma.

Dad even planned a 1/2 birthday party for him on Friday. A true celebration of life. 

Yes, a trachea is scary. I mean, the kid LOVES to pull things out like his feeding tube and CPAP, but for the first time ever yesterday, I saw him breathing comfortably. He was no longer struggling just to breathe. It was a very beautiful moment and worth all the pain and anxiety to get there. 

So what does all of this mean? The "plan" right now is that the trachea will stay in for 1-3 years depending on how he reacts. He won't be discharged from the hospital until at least April. From there, we will see his progress and he may need to go to a rehab facility for awhile. We don't have an exact time when he'll be home. Things could always change. We aren't out of the woods yet, but we have a lot of hope. Between Jesus, his nurses, doctors, and modern medicine, we have a lot on our side.

But please don't be sad for us. The last thing I want is for you to see these photos or read this and feel bad for us. We are finally at a place of peace. A place where I no longer view the hospital in a negative way. It may be his home for awhile, but it's not forever. My hope is that these photos bring a smile to your face because let's be honest, even with the tubes, Joseph is the cutest darn boy on the planet. 

Love, 

Ashlie- a very biased mother

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. 

Thrifting in the House

Guys. I do apologize. I started this blog with the best of intentions. But you all know what happens when you start things with good intentions. Life tends to laugh in your face and poop all over your intentions. So, I can't promise that I won't ever go this long again, but I can promise you that I will only write when I feel like it, and lately, I haven't felt like it. I really don't want this blog to be an obligation, I want it to be fun, honest and real. That means I will only write when my heart says I should write.  Today it felt like writing about a place I miss lately, and that's home.

By now, you know that Target donates (or sells, I honestly have no clue how it gets there) some of their merchandise to Goodwill. Thankfully, this is NOT limited to clothes. There are also tons of home decor products at Goodwill from Target. They donate pretty much anything and everything. I have seen beauty products to diapers.

Back in November we renovated part of our house. It used to look like this....

  Look, I know what you're thinking. Wood paneling and blue carpet is pretty much on trend these days, BUT we decided to move forward. The game plan was to put up a wall and make half the room a bedroom. I am only going to show you the living area today because the extra bedroom is kind of my closet at the moment and the curtain rod may or may not be hanging on for it's dear life.
                              

By the way, believe everything you hear about home renovations. They. Are. Awful. The awfulness did NOT come from our contractors, (we used a contractor for part of the work). Let's just face it, I am a spoiled woman who likes things to be complete in a week. Yes, I like to live in a world full of rainbows and unicorns. All of the dust and paint was worth it. Our finished product is below.

Finally, to the thrifting. My gallery wall is mostly thrifted Target items. Let me show you. 

 Try not to be jealous of my sperm arrows. The clock and the mirror were definitely my favorite finds.      

The pillow is thrifted and the chair was actually a hand me down from my Mom. Technically it was better than thrifted, it was free!

The orange blanket is thrifted and actually still in stores for 40 dollars. I bought it at Goodwill, still with tags for 12.99. 

The room is still a work in progress. I didn't take a picture of the entire room because I am still working on accessorizing my entertainment center. By the way, I am terrible at accessorizing with fashion and my home. I have decided that I am just going to wait until Joanna Gaines shows up at my door. Rainbows and unicorns.  Until next time friends.

 <3 Ashlie