Finally Starting a blog!

Ok so I'm a slacker, I should have been doing this all along but at least
I'm finally getting to it.

Ashley was born October 1st 2007, 6 weeks and 1 day ahead of what was supposed
to be the due date.

It all started at sometime around 4am, details are skethcy, but I awoke to my
wife in quite a bit of pain. I asked what was wrong but as I was speaking those
words I knew by the look on her face what was happening. I started timing the
contractions and soon called the doctor who stated the obvious, head to the
hospital and lets see whats going on.

Well a few hours later Ashley was here! Its kind of funny because the day before
all this happened, in fact just a few hours before the whole scene started to
unfold, we had the big family baby shower. I talked to Ashley through Mommy's belly
as I did almost every night and told Ash I couldn't wait to hold her and show her
all the really cool things she got. Well little did I know she couldn't wait to see
it all!

Ashley ended up spending 26 days in the NICU. Let me tell you something. I've seen
miracles and tragedy on the news but until you've spent some time inside a NICU and
its one of your own kids laying there, you have no idea what its like to deal with
something like that. I mean you can get an idea but you really can't grasp the
whole situation until you're in those shoes.

The doctors and nurses and the state of medicine and technology today is simply
AMAZING.

Ash has really grown alot and is so incredibly smart already. Shes at the stage of
being a super roller! She can roll all over the place, soon she should start to crawl
and thats when we're in trouble! :)

I will be posting pics of all types. I will show you pics from when she was in the NICU
just so you can get a small taste of what we dealt with. Let me say this though, we did
not go through one of the really hard paths that some parents have taken or still are
taking to this day.

We witnessed a couple getting the unfortunate news that there was nothing the doctors
could do to save their baby. The family came in the next day and had to say goodbye to their little baby.
It was very hard to even watch that not even knowing them. My heart just sunk and I felt
really bad for them.

There is a couple that we have stayed in touch with that their kiddo has already had
3 surgeries and a multivisceral transplant and the kiddo is just approaching his first
birthday in July. http://www.cartermcates.com for the AMAZING story. It's a must read!

Ok so pics are going to be uploaded asap and more added when I can. You'll get to see
Ashley from day 1 to current, which is 8 1/2 months old, well she'll be 9 months on
July 1st.

More to come soon!