The Hand of God

Prior to my current full time day job of NICU mom, I spent my days working as an Assistant United States Attorney.  I am so blessed to work with amazing, talented people who have all been a tremendous support during this time in my family's life.  My boss posted the following on his Facebook last night:

"From an obituary today of Doris Betts, a Southern novelist who wrote with a Christian "overlay", as she put it. She once was asked what made her want to be a writer. "Oh, Bible stories, without question," she replied. "It makes you feel that the ordinary is not ordinary." I love that! So true. The "ordinary" is not ordinary at all, you just have to look, and you can see the hand of God everywhere."

That last sentence really struck a cord with me.  The "ordinary" is not ordinary at all, you just have to look, and you can see the hand of God everywhere.  If you walked by Ashton's crib today and just glanced over you would see a tiny baby that looks little, but "ordinary".  She doesn't have a ton of tubes or wires; she doesn't have lots of machines surrounding her crib; she has a mobile to look at and a crib mirror--all very "ordinary" things.  But if you actually stop and look at her you can see the tiny scars from all of her previous lines; the marks on her little body from the testing in days past; the nasal cannula that still helps her breath.  If you look at my "ordinary" baby girl, you can see that the hand of God has shaped her and brought her through so very much in her short life. 

I have been very reluctant to share photos of Ashton in her early days mostly out of fear that people would react poorly to seeing a very sick baby.  I didn't want people to pity her--I wanted people to have an image of the fighter that Cody and I saw when we looked at her.  But after reading my boss' post last night my first thought was "when I look at Ashton ALL I can see is the hand of God" because I spent SO many days looking at her at her sickest.

These pictures are of Ashton at about four hours old.  She looks so "big" and "purple" because she had over a pound of fluid on her little body.  She has the ventilator tube in her throat and IVs in her legs. Her eyes are swollen shut and, because of the swelling, you can not see her neck.

I know many people do not see these pictures as beautiful, but to us they show the hand of God.  A God that was giving us precious minutes with our daughter.  We certainly hoped and prayed for more, but we were so very thankful that she was doing what some doctors said was impossible--surviving.  Today, Ashton looks pretty "ordinary" (aside from the tape mustache on her face).  The swelling in her face is gone, she is no longer purple, and she doesn't have any IVs.  While some may walk by and see and "ordinary" preemie in our NICU pod, I say "the 'ordinary' is not ordinary at all, you just have to look, and you can see the hand of God.'"

Much love,

Brandi