rachel brooks photography blog

What is most lovely? A bride getting ready on her wedding day. Yep.

You know what else is lovely? A baby boy. Fat feet. And a redeeming God. I’m actually in my 27th week now…so these are a little out of date. But for the sake of the internet, late sharing is better than no sharing, eh?

A one night babymoon vacation might be crazy to most people, but to us, it was just right. We may have never had an official honeymoon, but we sure have had some amazing 24 hr random trips in all different parts of the country. This past weekend turned out to be one of our last free ones before baby boy comes…a random b&b in Fort Walton Beach, FL, turned out to be the most perfect place ever. Who knew?

Here is the boy getting the things…a little too much for a weekend, I know. And then there’s me and Sam. He’s fun. He’s more than fun, he’s a miracle.

This past weekend was emotionally packed. Two memorial services, a last minute/last easy getaway, and reuniting with a friend who has been one of the most important people in my life this past year. And let me tell you, we were so blessed friday night as we watched and joined a family praise a good God in the middle of just complete turmoil. I wish I could carry the experience and presence of the Lord from that night to everyone everywhere. I will always be in awe of what I saw and experienced that evening. Just in complete awe. Makes Heaven feel so real, and yet so far away from anything we’ve known.

All that to lead to this…

Anna. She’s pregnant! And last Sunday we hugged, we took photos, we celebrated the life of her daddy, and we went home. It was too short. Much, much too short. I’m going to have to wait till I get my butt in gear with that personal blog I keep meaning to put together before I spill my soul about this girl, our friendship and this new baby. Until then, which is hopefully soon, I’ll just write a little cheese that only she and maybe/possibly some other women may understand. Anna, I read this on a blog the other day after you introduced me that new phrase

“Without our storm, we may have never seen our rainbow.”

Baby Tripp, you have my whole heart. I have been waiting on you…thanks for coming at the most perfect time ever. And thank you Jesus–thank you for my Anna, for our angels, and for our little Samuel & Tripp. I feel like with as much as we have emotionally invested in each other’s babies, they are now communal property, ha!

& More of Allison + Matt’s wedding, and a personal blog where all this stuff is going to live coming soon. Have a happy day.

We’ll have to pretend today that this is a personal blog and not my business blog…k? We good?

Johnny and I really thought this baby was a girl. I mean, really, really thought it was a girl. I will give credit to myself though in telling you all that starting in mid January, I had lots of nagging boy feelings. But after I’d tell the husband about them, I’d just brush them off and think–there’s no way this is a boy, I mean, I have absolutely zero boy names. And I have the sweetest girl name. There’s no way…there’s just no way.

Because we all know the sex of a baby depends on the mothers preference for names. Duh.

Anyway, he of course is a boy. And I’m freakin’ ecstatic. Like, beyond the moon. It’s so much more perfect than I could have ever hoped for. Ever. Little boys love their mommas, and mommas love their little boys. And Johnny’s responsibility for the next 50 years of my life is probably going to center around keeping my relationship with this precious baby as healthy and as non-suffocating as possible. And I will mostly likely do my best to see that he fails…at least a couple of times. I kid…sort of. But back to his name, the night we found out he was, in fact, a he, my father-in-law said something that really messed me and John Paul up. Just messed us all up. And we immediately knew this precious baby’s name…

Samuel John Buckley–Perfect. Nope, it’s not a double name situation…he’ll go by Samuel. Sometimes Sam. And definitely not Sammy.

For those of you who were close to us during the time we lost our first precious baby, you may remember that we named him Samuel. We never had any intention of using this name ‘again’. Never, ever, ever. But again, that father-in-law of mine said something that night that just blew our minds and we started going back and re-reading everything we had written, believed in, and pleaded the Lord for our Samuel. And you have to realize that John Paul and I went to a place in our faith that we had never been before during those weeks after losing our baby, and what we stood on and believed in was intense for us. Giving a lost unborn baby a name gives peace. It really, really does. Anytime I heard or spoke the name Samuel, I felt hopeful again. I felt like he was real and like I knew him. And those feelings are hard to come by during those days and months right after a loss. And all of a sudden it hit us, this is our Samuel! This is him! This is who we prayed, believed, and hoped in the Lord for…this baby, at this time…this is him. This is Samuel.

And his name means God heard. Like, what? That’s intense. And absolutely perfect. He did hear, and He was gracious. And even though we couldn’t see through our prayers then, we can now. And we’re so thankful. We love little baby Sam. We just love him. And we love that Jesus who gave him to us.

So, I’m halfway in to my 19th week and John Paul and I decided to take a few minutes yesterday afternoon to commemorate our ‘pretty much halfway there’ mark in our backyard with the blossoming pear tree…and I’m large and in charge people. I had someone ask me the other day if I had all I needed for the baby–I said no, that I actually had nothing. She looked shocked and worried and it hit me…she thinks I’m about to pop in the next 6 weeks, ha! It made me laugh and I reassured her that I wasn’t even halfway done yet…that’s actually happened twice. Yep, twice. Each time is funny. I love growing this baby…and these baby kicks have added a whole new level of joy to pregnancy. I just love it.

“And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground.” I Samuel 3:19