We rarely give you guys a look into our personal life and for a long time we were OK with that. We thought we were here to show you great photography and beautiful images we capture each week...but recently God has been pushing me to share more. He has laid something big on my heart and I feel that sharing it with our friends and clients is the best way to raise awareness for the struggles, and show you the victories, our 6 year old son has. Our life is far from perfect and can be messy at times, but my prayer is that by showing you our blessed mess, it will help another mom, person, or family that is struggling to overcome. There are a few verses that our family has clung throughout this journey...
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." {Philippians 4:13}.
Wes and I realized that without Christ, there way no way we were going to overcome this challenge, but with Him, we had everything! I am so excited to share with you our story...its a long one and I will be sharing more about our journey each week. Our prayer is that you will picture a person's abilities instead of their disabilities...
We begin back in 2009...
November 3, 2009...Wes and I entered a whole new level of life and love. Our sweet baby boy had entered the world at 4:30 pm. He was healthy and big! He was a "snuggly" 8 pounds 15 ounces and 22 inches long. Our hearts...for the first time in our lives...was beating outside of our chest. We had never known a love like this. We named him Brock Allen Roberts. Strong family names...and decided to call him Brock Allen (because that's what we do in the South, we use double names). His birth was a blessing and we went home from the hospital as a family of 3 after just a few days. Wes and I loved just watching him sleep. He was the most perfect baby. Never fussy, loved to eat and be held, was just all around perfect. As the days quickly flew by, we loved watching him learn new things, seeing him smile, hearing his little noises that turned into words, watching him take is first steps...all the wonderful milestones that every parent loves to see....but then things started to look different. Around 18 months old we noticed that Brock Allen was not using words, language or communicating like the typical toddler should. He would just scream or cry for what he wanted. He began to have melt downs when we were in a loud or noisy environment. He would cry, tantrum, and typically Wes or myself would have to remove him from the situation in order to calm him down. We noticed funny little things he would do, like move his eyes to the side and follow the sun light coming in the windows. He would lay on the floor and roll cars right in front of his eyes. We also noticed he had severe aversions to certain foods. He went from eating everything to gagging on most anything we offered him to eat. Getting a haircut was a nightmare for all involved. He would scream, cry, kick and hit. It was exhausting. He struggled with things that required fine motor skills and seemed to be falling behind his peers at this stage. As a special education teacher, I realized we needed some help. We denied it for a while thinking he was just a boy and this is just what babies do, they all develop differently, but I knew in my gut something wasn't right. Once I came to terms with the fact that something could be wrong, Wes and I decided to call Early Intervention...
He was evaluated and we were given results...shocked, worried, scared...wondering where do we go from here....we had a child with special needs, but we knew we were loved by our God and he had a much bigger plan...
Our sweet firstborn son...the image above was taken in the Spring of 2012. He was a little over 2 years old. This was about the time we realized that he wasn't developing as he should and we began to seek help.
Blessings,
