hannah jane: 1 year old

A very happy, happy birthday to my sweet hannah :) 1 year ago today at 9:33am our sweet baby girl was born.

Born a month early, she was immediately taken to the NICU to have help breathing. I held her for less than one minute. I didn't see her again until late the next day. I was too scared to see her. 

So grateful to the Lord for this past year - a very, very challenging year. My hubby and I were talking about it last night - recounting the (many) different difficult events that have transpired over the past year - probably the hardest in our entire almost-10-years-of-marriage. Postpartum depression - which clouded many, many, months for me (and of course made things more difficult altogether), major sicknesses in myself and our family, many dear friends moving away, my sister and her husband moving away, and many exhausting circumstances.

But each thing we talked about, we were also able to talk about God's grace to us and our family. Through my tears as I wept, we talked about His unending grace and comfort. We were able to recount the many, many blessings - the huge blessings (like the fact that our baby girl developed really well and was healthy and able to come home after a week!) and the mundane but special things that could easily go unnoticed. We were able to recount how He never left us.

Did it seem like there was no hope sometimes? yes. 
Was there no hope? no. 

He was faithful to bring us through, one day at a time. He was faithful to me through my husband who has always had unwavering hope and faith. He was faithful to our (now big) family through our extended family (my mom spent many, many weeks here off and on after Hannah was born and I was back in the hospital, my sis and her husband were here a lot as well) and through our close friends and church family. We were shown so much grace and love by so many.

We are so thankful. So thankful for God's love. So thankful for other's outpouring of love. So thankful to have this year behind us. So thankful to have learned and grown. So thankful to continue to learn and grow. Thank you, Lord.