Our firstborn son, Colton, was born healthy at 40 weeks and a day, weighing 7 pounds and 20 inches long. About 18 months later, we expected nothing less when we found out we were having a second child. But soon after, I learned I had a sub-chorionic hematoma, and my water broke at 23 weeks.

I was on hospital bedrest until our son Asher decided he couldn’t wait and was born on July 18, 2016, at 29 weeks weighing a tiny 2lbs 6oz. Had it not been for the aggressive treatments at the hospital and Asher arrived at 23 weeks, he would have been born less than a pound and with close-to-no chance of survival. Now he had a fighting chance.

But Asher’s lungs were terribly underdeveloped. He ended up having severe bronchial spasms and tracheomalacia, and he had a tracheostomy days after the new year in 2017. It was 7 months before Asher was even considered stable enough to have his own room in the NICU.

Asher faced many of the hurdles common to preemies: a brain bleed, PDA, clots in his heart and stomach, bacterial infections, anemia, chronic lung disease, vision problems, and kidney function issues, to name a few.

He was transferred from the NICU to the PICU at 8 months of age and spent a month in the PICU before he went home for the first time on April 13, 2017.