I gave birth to James on May 1st and we said hello and goodbye on that day. Three months later, on August 1st, I was pregnant with Graham. We had prayed about trying and realized that we had potentially one chance to get pregnant with our rainbow baby before needing to wait a significantly longer amount of time because of a crazy wedding season. Michael and I prayed about this…. it was such a risk… emotionally and physically. After everything we had just been through… every heartbreaking appointment, every disappointment, every hard detail of losing James… should we really put ourselves in a position to potentially relive something like that again? It was definitely scary, but we knew that we wouldn’t get pregnant if it wasn’t the right time, and we also knew that if we did get pregnant God would have a purpose for whatever would happen next in our story.

I have always heard of women who say they just KNEW they were pregnant from the very beginning and I have always thought that seemed impossible…. but this time around, I knew. I knew we were beginning the next season of our story immediately. Lots of tears… lots of hope… lots of anticipating. I remember being at the lake with friends and family a week or so after trying and feeling crampy out on the boat. I wanted to be hopeful but I also new it was a long shot. Michael and I came home from the lake and I told him I was going to take a test. We laid on our bed and prayed as we waited to see if two lines would appear…. and they did. Very clearly. I couldn’t believe it. Insert more happy tears. I quickly realized that this baby’s due date would be within 7 days of the one year anniversary of James’ birthday and once I realized that, I truly started to believe that this could really be our redemption story.

The months and weeks following were hard. I envisioned having to tell the world that we were pregnant, only to announce a miscarriage later on. I envisioned hearing hard things at every appointment. I could see us getting hopeful just to be devastated…. but those things never happened. Week by week, this baby continued to grow. At 8 weeks there was an umbilical cord cyst and protein in my urine that made us think that I may have had some damage from developing pre-eclampsia right after James’ delivery, but by week 12 those things were gone. We continued this pregnancy with one good appointment after another. It felt surreal to leave our doctor’s office with only good news to share with our families.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago…. I was around 38 weeks pregnant and I started believing that our easy pregnancy would turn complicated at the very end. Complicated was all that we had ever known!

If you don’t have 3 hours to read through Evy and James’ birth stories (HERE and HERE), here’s a recap of our past…. I had gestational diabetes with Evy, an aggressive tumor that almost ate through my knuckle on my index finger and had to be surgically removed when I was 9 months pregnant, and an awful OB experience being told that I could never deliver my first baby vaginally because of her size. James was our second baby. It was a surprise pregnancy when Evy was just 8 months old. At 20 weeks he was diagnosed with Down Syndrome with severe complications, including a cystic hygroma and hydrops, and was not supposed to survive past 24 weeks. He lived until 31 weeks and I delivered him the day we lost him. I developed severe pre-eclampsia immediately after his birth because of all that was wrong with his placenta and his swelling. I had to spend two extra days in the hospital and was put on magnesium in order to correct the pre-eclampsia.

Whew.

See why I was so convinced that my third pregnancy would have to be complicated somehow? But it wasn’t.

Monday morning, April 22nd, I had a massage at 10am and then an OB appointment at 2:00pm where I had my membranes stripped for the third time. I then came home and told Michael that I wanted to ride on our zero-turn lawn mower… hoping that the bumps and jolts around the yard would start labor. Nothing happened throughout dinner but at 8:00pm, we hopped on a zoom call with some friends of ours, and I noticed a few contractions that were low. They weren’t Braxton Hicks… they were different.

They were 10 minutes apart and then 20 minutes apart. I had no idea if this was labor…. I hadn’t ever been in labor before! So I finished packing the hospital bag (I was 2 days from my due date… procrastination at its’ finest!) and I told Michael to sleep upstairs. I was having a hard time sleeping through the contractions and hearing him snore just made me mad! :) I got some sleep and then woke up feeling like nothing was happening. After being up and walking around for about an hour, contractions restarted and were about 4 minutes apart. They stayed that way for almost 5 hours. I called the OB office and they told me I could come into the office, but since I had the monitors to check my blood pressure and his heart rate I chose to stay home a little while longer, and I’m glad I did.

They say go to the hospital when you don’t want your picture taken anymore…. I was getting close to that point! ha!

Our good friend Jill drove into town and came to the house for lunch. Momma, Emy, Michael, Jill and the toddlers all hung out while I labored at home. I always wanted to be able to labor at home for a while before heading to the hospital. It got to the point where I didn’t want to eat anything… the only thing that sounded good was a Chick Fil A chocolate milkshake! (I mean, when doesn’t a Chick Fil A milkshake sound good?!) We decided to head to the hospital around 1:00pm and I was admitted by 2:00pm. I’m just going to put this out there…. TRIAGE is INFURIATING when you are in labor! One nurse said “Ok, we need to figure out if we’re going to keep you or not!” and I wanted to say “Oh, you’re keeping me!!! I’m not going anywhere!!!!”. Don’t get me wrong, the nurses and staff were great… we adore this hospital… I was just in PAIN!

I was 5cm, 80% effaced and he was engaged. It was a little disappointing to hear that after hours and hours of strong contractions at home I was only at 5 cm… but I was halfway there and so I needed to just focus on keeping things moving. I got to our room and met our midwife. Her name was Brenda and she had the most peaceful demeanor. She talked to us and asked why I wanted a natural birth, and so I told her our story (in between contractions of course!). I have to admit…. I didn’t go into the hospital 100% committed to a natural birth. I wanted a natural birth but I also knew that an epidural had done wonders for me in the past and I wasn’t afraid of them….. in fact, I’ve only had good experiences with them! I’ve heard that if you go into this process without fully dedicating to a natural birth no matter how painful it gets, you usually don’t end up avoiding the epidural, and I remember that statistic floating around in my head throughout the day. I really had no idea how this was going to go.

Brenda asked our nurse to move us to a room with a tub (praise the LORD for that tub! It came in handy later on). I’m so thankful that she knew that I needed this. Brenda, our nurse Steph, and Michael helped me make it down the hall to a new room through a bad contraction and once we got there…. it seemed like I couldn’t get a break. I stopped having conversations in between contractions because I needed to just rest before another wave hit. I rotated on the ball, tried standing and holding onto Michael’s shoulders for some, tried laying down for some (horrible idea), tried just leaning over on the bed for some (much better idea)…. but no matter what I did, it was intense. The pain level was HIGH and I started asking Brenda how much longer she thought it would be…. which she obviously couldn’t tell me… but I was desperate to have a gauge of how long I would have to live like this.

In my mind, I felt like I could keep going if I knew when the end would be…. but that’s not how labor works. Brenda reminded me to take it one contraction at a time… and I would… but then I would think “Um, If I have to do this for 8 more hours, I CAN’T!!!”. It was getting to the point where I would cry during the worst part of each contraction and I was starting to lose hope that I could keep going without an epidural… but then I noticed something that I had noticed with James’ and Evy’s births. The nurse started prepping the baby warmer thing. Then I noticed that Brenda never left the room like she said she was going to do. This may sound like no big deal, but it was a big deal for me. I knew what those things meant…. they could tell something was happening and they were preparing for it. Praise the Lord!!! Maybe the end was closer than I thought!!

I remember asking when I could be checked again to see if any progress was being made. In my mind, I wanted to be checked because if I was only at 6cm, I was going to ask for an epidural. It had been two hours since I had last been checked and while I know they normally want to wait longer than that, I was desperate for an update. Brenda checked me and much to my surprise (and relief!) said “Ok, you’re at 8…. this is transition… let’s get the tub ready.” I laid my head back on the bed and cried. I felt so relieved that this was IT… this was the worst part, I was progressing quickly and I knew the end was coming. I got in the tub and it felt like the closest thing to an epidural. Heavenly. The water was HOT and it was wonderful!! It was the first feeling of relief that I had had for hours. I remember Brenda somewhat sternly telling me “If you feel like you need to push, you HAVE to get out”. These were not birthing tubs, they are for relief but not for delivering babies. I stayed in the tub for about 20-25 minutes, and Jilly came back to the room around this time.

This is where it got kinda confusing and scary for me. I had no reason to be scared… but I knew the hardest part was coming and I had never been able to feel pushing 100% before. I went through a few contractions on the bed that were just awful. It hurts just to think about them. I felt like I was close to pushing but looking back, I probably could have waited another contraction or two. I hadn’t hit the “I need to push! I can’t help it!” phase, but I did feel a ton of pressure and so I started pushing. It seemed so foreign to me because it didn’t feel like the pushing I had experienced before. With Evy, I could feel the pressure but didn’t feel pain. Pushing was a relief with her and I felt like I got the hang of it quickly. James was breech but I only pushed for 15 minutes. In my head, I had planned on pushing like TWICE to get this third baby out and that was a horrible expectation to put on myself. Now that I know I was about to push out my biggest baby yet, I should have had more realistic expectations!!

I pushed and I could tell what a good push felt like and a halfway push. I felt beyond exhausted and I think I even said “I don’t think I can do this!!” and someone said “Yes you can, and ummm….you have to!!!”. I don’t know if I have ever felt more overwhelmed in my life. I just felt like nothing was happening, and I didn’t have the strength to push as hard as I knew I needed to, AND I was terrified of the pain. I remember saying “What can I do better?! Oh no, I don’t feel the ring of fire… it’s going to get worse, isn’t it!?!”. Brenda would say something encouraging and I would say “Ok, ok, ok” and then try again. The interesting thing is that while this part was painful… the actual contractions were slower and less intense. How nice of my body to give me a little break while I figured out how to get a huge baby out of me and into the world!!

Something I will never forget…. right after pushing started, our nurse from both Evy’s and James’ birth came in. Sweet Sarah. Just seeing her gave me such a sweet sense of comfort and familiarity. I just love her and so does Michael. She held my leg, and I remember that feeling so clearly from past births because she’s STRONG!! I also remember that she had counted for me during pushing and it helped me hold a push longer than I normally would. She told me that some people HATE the counting, but I asked her to count during each contraction and push, because it was really helpful to me!

About the time that I was truly feeling like I couldn’t go on…. which was probably only 18 minutes into pushing (but felt like an eternity!), I pushed one really hard push and Graham’s head stayed where I had pushed it. The nurses and Brenda praised this progress but I was still just as overwhelmed as ever. This is when Jill prayed over me, and I asked Jesus to help me because I felt beyond incapable. Maybe it was the new position of his head or maybe it was an immediate answer to prayer, but my body started pushing without me. I couldn’t help it. It’s like it just took over. Brenda told me to slow down, and I apologized and said I couldn’t! It may have been a few pushes later… I don’t really remember.. but I heard “Ok, his head is out” and I honestly couldn’t believe it. It was over. Oh my gosh, it was OVER!!!! The physical relief that flooded over me was indescribable…. and then the emotions of meeting our rainbow baby hit hard.

I heard baby Graham cry for the first time…. a sound I had longed for since May 1st of last year.

As baby Graham laid on my chest, I put my hand around his head and just closed my eyes and sobbed, and so did Michael. I remember saying right after giving birth to him…. “This is so much sweeter after you have walked through what we walked through”. I said that with tears streaming down my face and holding my chunky third baby in my arms. I don’t know of anything that could have been more redemptive to our story than what we experienced in that moment.

I know what it’s like to do all of this and then hold a baby who will never take a breath. I remember holding James for the first time feeling so in love with him and so heartbroken at the same time. That memory was etched into my brain so deeply that I had forgotten the incredible joy of what it feels like to hold a living baby for the first time. This is going to seem so sad… but I cried thinking about how warm Baby Graham was and that he wasn’t going to turn cold. I cried watching Michael cry and rejoice over this precious baby that we had prayed for. I cried seeing Michael holding and kissing a son who we would get to take home…. and I cried realizing that we were finally on the other side of the hardest year of our entire life. We finally had a healthy baby boy in our arms.

The tears subsided and the comments about how chunky he was started to come. I could tell he was big but he didn’t feel much different than Evy to me…. that’s because he was practically the same size! He was 4oz bigger than her, weighing in at 9lbs and 14ounces. Whew. I remember hearing that and then thinking “Oh my gosh…. I just did that… without any pain medication at all…. how in the world?!?!”. Needless to say, I was impressed with myself because I didn’t know if I had it in me to give birth this way. I think if you ask Michael, he would vote that I never do it that way again simply because of how hard it was to watch me be in so much pain. However, while the pain was awful, I have never recovered so fast from a birth. Just simply being able to stand up immediately and not have the weird affects of the epidural wearing off was amazing! I have a lot of thoughts about natural birth vs. an induction/epidural since experiencing both sides but that’s probably for another blog post!

(Ps. Nurses are some of the most amazing people on the planet!! Sarah and Steph, you are the best and such a blessing!!)

Brenda, our midwife, who was just as sweet as can be! 

Another moment that I remember vividly was when Evy came in to meet baby Graham. We had heard that it’s best to have a sibling come in and see momma without the baby first and then introduce the baby. However, if you follow us on Instagram, you know just how OBSESSED Evy is with babies right now and so she was READY to see him!!!! She loved giving me a hug, but you could tell she was looking around for him! Michael went over to the bassinet to get him and she lit up. She hugged him and kissed him and wanted to hold him. A few minutes later, the triage nurses came in to congratulate us and Evy was a CHATTERBOX. She was telling them ALL about her new brother who she had just met 3 minutes prior. It truly melts your heart to see your first baby meet a sibling…. but just like many parts of this birth experience, I have experienced this scene before. Evy has walked in and met a sibling before…. but it was a totally different experience.

Every. single. part. of Graham’s story has been so incredibly redemptive for us…..

* Healthy ultrasounds
* No diabetes
* Perfect Maternity21 test results
* No swelling, no high BP, no signs of Pre-eclampsia
* Going into labor on my own
* Progressing quickly
* Having a natural birth with minimal damage (If you know what I mean!)
* A healthy baby
* No high blood pressure after delivery like with James
* Getting to introduce Evy to a sibling
* Having my family sit in the same waiting room they have waited in multiple times now and get to deliver good news
* Watching our families walk in to meet a healthy baby
* Having my Daddy pray over our family in the hospital room again but with such different emotions
* Going to the recovery floor with a baby in my arms
* Being discharged with a carseat in hand
* Coming home with a brand new family member
* Milk coming in that wasn’t a harsh and painful reminder of what I lost
* Not fitting into pre-pregnancy clothes but having a really cute reason why
* Even Graham failing his hearing test and us having to wait to get good results a few weeks later was redemptive in several ways

This list could go on and on. Every part of what we are experiencing now is cherished and appreciated in such a sweeter way because Baby James existed. In a sweet way, it has made me realize just how God can truly turn “mourning into dancing” and make beauty come from the ashes. If we had had a second child without our story of James, it would have been so sweet and we would have cherished that baby….but everything is different because of our story. Nothing is taken for granted. I spend many hours a day nursing baby Graham in our bedroom and my view the whole time is of James’ wall. Sometimes I’ll sit there and cry while feeding Baby Graham, not because I’m sad but because I’m so grateful. Thank you Jesus for this precious baby. He has no idea what he represents to us or how loved he is, but he will. We’ll forever share with him how his life holds so much hope and how God has used him to bring so much new joy into our lives.

I know this is long…. did you really expect anything less?? ha!…. but I’m glad it’s written down and I’ll forever have this story saved. I can’t finish this post without thanking Jill, and Ty & Ashley for documenting SO MANY SEASONS of our life. These three have spent countless hours in the Henrico Doctor’s Hospital waiting room for us. They have sacrificed trips and time with their family just to be there to capture and save parts of our story. They have walked into our hospital rooms when everything was wonderful, and when it felt like we couldn’t imagine a darker day. We are thankful for good friends who are selfless and talented!!!

Enjoy some pictures from Graham’s Birthday!!!! Ps. Does this next picture look familiar? There is a very similar one of our family’s faces when they heard how big Evy was!

Think she was excited to see her daddy??  And VERY eager to go meet her brother?!  Me explaining that Baby Graham isn’t inside of my belly anymore! (We had talked about this often before bedtime!)  She was so excited!!! Love at first sight!  Telling the triage nurses about her brother!  “Look! He has hair!!” I love this one….
Grammie gave Evy a new baby doll and it was WELL received! 

Ps. I cannot WAIT to share his newborn portraits in his one-month blog post!!! Emily Gerald did the most beautiful job!!!

The post Introducing Graham Warren Alsop <span class="kj-subtitle">His Birth Story</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Today may be Baby James’ birthday, but this is not the only day that we celebrate his life and talk about him. We share about him constantly.  Sometimes I tell strangers about him even though I know that it’s a lot for them to hear… but I don’t care. When people asked me if I was pregnant with my first, I never say our second…. even though that would be the easiest thing to say. James’ life is still a part of our lives and will forever be a part of our story that we will share without hesitating.

Today, the four of us went down to visit James’ willow tree on the other side of our property with one balloon for his first birthday. I’m praying this tree lives for decades and I have told Michael we’re never leaving this house because of this tree!!!! :)  It was a sweet day full of the kindest messages from so many friends and family who wanted us to know that they still love and remember our baby.

Baby James…. Happy Birthday sweet boy. You would have been one today and even though our heart ache to have you here… doing all the things little one year olds do…. we rejoice that you are in the place we all ultimately long to be. We love you and we’ll never stop sharing your story.

Read more about Baby James’ story HERE, HERE & HERE!

Thank you Aunt Emy for taking these!!!!

The post Happy 1st Birthday Baby James <span class="kj-subtitle">Celebrating Our Baby in Heaven</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Our good friend Tyler Herrinton has been filming business projects and personal projects for us for years… but the project that we have been working on recently is by far the most important video of our entire life. We filmed our life with James while he was still alive inside of me. Ty and Ash came to the hospital the day he was born and filmed our families getting to meet him. Tyler filmed James’ entire memorial service and recently, Tyler came over and we filmed his story from beginning to end. We’re in the process of creating an entire documentary style video sharing his story and today we wanted to show you a preview. We’re so excited to finish this project and have a beautiful video that shares everything about James’ life. Enjoy this preview of all that’s to come! :)

The post A Preview of James’ Story + Our New Season <span class="kj-subtitle">A Story of Loss and Hope</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Michael and my sister Emy took these for me. This was my one request before I was induced. I was huge… especially for only being 31 weeks. After delivering James and seeing the size of his placenta (3x larger than normal due to his complications), it makes sense why I was the size that I was.  I love this sweet picture with my two babies. It’s one of my all time favorites!  This was the moment he was born and we got to see his sweet face. It was incredibly sad but also so sweet. I can look at these images and remember what it felt like to finally get to hold him. I debated having pictures taken of his actual birth but I’m so SO thankful that Jill was there with her camera. These pictures mean more to me than any other pictures I have from our life.

This was my sister getting to see me and James for the first time after delivery. She’s my best friend and literally walked through EVERY day of this journey with me. She and Joe and Micah moved in with us right before Christmas and now we know why that timing was so important. We needed them here with us these past 5 months. I cried with her in the office almost everyday when I was pregnant. She watched Evy whenever Michael and I needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air. She ran our business when I just couldn’t do anything anymore. She has been the greatest blessing to me and I’m so grateful for her.  This picture is a perfect representation of my parents. They would do anything for their kids. Watching me walk through this pregnancy was incredibly hard on them. I can’t imagine seeing your daughter experience something like this and being unable to fix it. Their entire life stopped and revolved around me and how they could help me through this.  I’ll never be able to thank them for how they loved me through the last 5 months. I’m so thankful for not only the way that they loved me, but also how much they loved James. Momma would kiss my belly and talk to James just like she did with Evy. It’s little things like this that made him a part of our family while he was still with us.  James was named after Michael’s dad. He survived stage four cancer ten years ago when the odds were stacked against him. It makes sense that James was a fighter just like his Paw. He was incredibly strong and amazed the doctors with the amount of fight he had in him just like his grandad.  Michael’s mom was an art teacher for over 20 years and is extremely talented. She painted Evy a beautiful watercolor with her name when she was born and did the same for baby James. It’s beautiful!! It’s little things like this that make me so thankful that we didn’t treat him any differently than we did Evy. He was loved and celebrated just as much as she was.  I’m so thankful for this precious gift and that I’ll forever have watercolors for both of our babies.  James getting to meet his Aunt Sarah. This picture makes me so happy. I can’t explain how much it meant to us that everyone in our immediate families got to meet James. Aunt Morgan and Uncle Corey were able to be there and I’m so thankful for that!! These two have run the road from VA Beach many many times for us. I love this picture because it looks so joyful and that’s what I wanted for this day. I wanted to remember it as being happy despite the sadness. I love this picture of Joe kissing James. Joe is Emy’s husband and he comes from the most loving Italian family where kisses are just a given when you’re saying hello or saying goodbye. It’s so fitting for this situation. I know I mentioned it before but having Joe and Emy with us during this part of our life was something that God knew that we needed long before we ever did. I’m so grateful for them. I’m thankful for the joy Micah brings to Evy’s life each day, I’m thankful for the bond I have with Emy and I’m really thankful that Michael has had Joe around to share life with… the good stuff and the hard stuff. Joe and Em were the ones who went on double dates with us when I was in my worst place. They have seen us at our worst and yet still love us.
Bud, Jill and baby girl Powers! Knox must have been running around with Micah! Ty and Ash…. I texted them three days prior to being induced and asked if they were around if we decided that we needed some video clips of James when we were at the hospital. They said “Of course, We’ll be there KK”…. and they were. I didn’t realize until I was in LABOR that they were also supposed to be at the same marriage retreat that Buddy and Jill missed as well. These sweet friends gave up a week off of work, lost thousands of dollars and sat in a waiting room just to capture 30mins of our time with our baby boy. I bawled when I realized they made this huge sacrifice for us. We are so blessed with such wonderful people in our lives. We will never be able to thank them enough. This is Michael’s mom’s watercolor and my mom handmade James’ white blanket that we all held him in at the hospital. Both of these things mean so much to me.   Our best friends Buddy and Jill are pregnant with their second baby and are due two weeks after James’ due date. We were so excited to be pregnant together again and while it’s so hard to not have our baby and for our story to be far from what we imagined it to be, God has been faithful. God gave us two friends who aren’t afraid to walk through this dark valley with us. The day we drove to Charlottesville to meet them and find out if they were having a girl or a boy, they gave us this beautiful box with James’ full name engraved on the top. It was their day yet they were still so thoughtful and considerate of us. That’s been true for this entire journey. They have dropped everything to show up when we needed them to. Whether that was when I needed to cry on the phone or needed Jill to pick up a baby shower present for me because I couldn’t shop for baby boy clothes or when they skipped an entire week of a marriage retreat that they were supposed to attend so that they could be here for James’ birth.  We are so grateful for them. They are family to us and their friendship is one of the greatest gifts in our lives.  This is my sweet friend and college roommate’s baby girl, Lovrin. I’m so thankful that she was there. I cried giving her a hug. She and James would have been buddies. While I have always loved this precious girl, I have a new place in my heart for her now that I’m a momma of a sweet boy with Down Syndrome.  Babies everywhere! We’re definitely in that season of life!! Our dear friends Jordan and Amy Demos live in Arizona and have a 13 week old. They have been constant prayer warriors for us throughout this entire journey. I could compile all of my texts to them from the past 5 months and make a BOOK. I cried when they asked about coming to a service for James if we were going to have one. They literally flew across the country to celebrate our son with us in our backyard.  These two. Mandy was my college roommate and Josh lived next to us. We have always had a special relationship with them and we cherish their friendship. Josh and Mandy sang and played at our wedding almost 8 years ago and now they have led worship at our baby’s memorial service. This is what a beautiful friendship looks like… showing up on the hilltops and in the valleys. I’m so so grateful for them.  Daddy did the service. He’s probably done 1,000 funerals during his 30 years of being a pastor but doing one for your grandson is different. He did a beautiful job reminding us that while this is so sad, we can still have joy. His words during the service were so special to me… but his long text messages that he would send me and Michael encouraging us and telling us how proud he was of us for the way that we have walked through this hard season meant the most. I’m so thankful for him. This was when Evy randomly started yelling “Mommmmmmaaa” during the service at the perfect time. She was sitting behind me with her great Aunt Charlotte and it was so sweet to hear in the midst of the tears.  My brother’s job allows him to have connections to amazing Nurseries. He took on the job of finding James’ Weeping Willow Tree and it was beautiful. The night he and Morgan got to our house and we unloaded it from his truck, we couldn’t believe how big and beautiful it was!! It’s exactly what we hoped for. Each member of our immediate family shoveled some dirt around James’ tree… even the babies.  Michael’s sister Sarah read a beautiful poem that she wrote for James and it was perfect!  We decided to have baby James cremated.  Michael and I both grew up in the same small town and we have a family friend who owns Storke Funeral Home.  He’s a close friend of my dad’s and they have been serving families and doing funerals together for decades. David has a team that normally helps him but he personally came to the hospital when it was time to say goodbye to James. We got to see our baby leave with a friend instead of being taken away by a stranger and we will never be able to express how much of a gift that was to us.  So thankful for our sweet friends from all different parts of our life who came to celebrate James’.  Many, many hours were spent on the road between all of these friends. Look at this sweet Ray baby!!!
Paisley and Jade graciously gifted us these chair rentals along with two church pews for James’ memorial service and we are so grateful!
Evy’s little hand!!! She was praisin’!

Katelyn’s Letter to James:

Dear James,
It’s hard to find words that can put all that we feel into a few paragraphs. It’s been 20 days since we met you and also had to say goodbye to you. That was the hardest day of my life, but it was also so incredibly peaceful. Your Daddy and I experienced such joy in the midst of such sadness the day we finally met you.

Like any parents, we wanted a normal life with you. We wanted to bring you home and watch you grow up with your sister. We prayed for a healthy baby and an easy pregnancy…. but we were never promised any of that. Those were things that, as parents, we ache for right now in this season… but when we think about our lives and what we ultimately long for, we want our children to know the Lord and we want them to leave an impact on this world. You’ve already done both of those things. You don’t just know the Father, you are with Him…. and while we long to care for you here on this earth, we find incredible peace and comfort knowing that your precious body is healed and that you are in the care of the Creator and Almighty God. Your precious life has made more impact on the kingdom than anything we have ever done in our entire lifetime.

Our time with you was so short. We loved finally getting to see your sweet face, hold your hands, and just have you in our arms. Those 18 hours weren’t nearly long enough…. but In the midst of our pain and our tears, deep down we always knew that you were His. You belonged to Him from the very beginning. He made you uniquely different and special from the moment He started forming you. While the rest of the world sees complications, we see a baby whose life was purposeful from the beginning.

This isn’t the story that we dreamed of when we found out that we were pregnant with you… but it’s a story that God has written and we know that we are specifically called to share it with the world. Other special babies will be loved more deeply because of your life. Other moms carrying babies who are also uniquely set apart will have more strength to keep going because you existed…. And people across the world will continue to reconsider how they view God in the midst of pain and suffering because you were our son. We have no doubt that hundreds, maybe even thousands of people will be joining you in heaven because of your precious life.

As your momma, my heart will never be the same. Carrying you was the hardest and yet most rewarding thing I have ever done in my entire life. I’ve always had trouble trusting the Lord and giving up control….but Everyday that I carried you after your 20 week ultrasound was a daily decision to trust that God loved me enough to have a plan for me and for you. I’m realizing more each day how much I love you, and how much I miss you. Some nights when I go to bed, I miss you in a way that is indescribable. It breaks my heart to think of how long I have to wait to see you again. Heaven seems so different to me now that you’re there. I know my love for you will never change, but with time God is going to allow the pain to subside. Eventually, I know that I’ll be able to rejoice that my baby is healed and with his Savior without so many tears and so much suffering at the same time.

Today we promise you that from this moment on, we will proudly and boldly share your story. For the rest of our lives, we will tell the world about our precious boy who was a fighter, who baffled doctors with his strength, and who changed our lives forever. Your life will not be forgotten or hidden because it’s too hard to talk about. We promise to choose to fulfill God’s purpose for your life even when it seems so much easier just to hide in the midst of our pain. Evy and other siblings will know your name. They will see pictures of you often and they will have a deeper understanding of eternity at such a young age because you were their brother. You will forever be missed and our hearts will always long for the missing piece of our family …. but we have so much to look forward to in eternity. Today we can rejoice and still experience joy because you are healed, and you are where we all long to be.

We praise God for you and we consider it a privilege to be chosen to be your parents.
I love you sweet boy.
Love Momma

Michael’s Letter to James:

To my son,

You have made me the proudest a father could be. Your short time on earth has had a huge impact on your mother and me, and with those whom we share your story. I am sure in the coming months and years I will question why things had to happen the way they did, but I will remember today and know that God’s plan is, was, and always will be perfect. Your mom and I had calls with our friend Julia where we created a vision of what we wanted our time to look like with you. We know that in Proverbs it says “where there is no vision the people perish.” We knew we needed to focus on loving you while we had you, and our vision helped us stay grounded during this tough season. For the last 2 years our vision has been centered around peace. Peace in work, life balance, peace in our relationships with friends and family, and peace in our marriage. We knew that we wanted our time with you, sweet boy, to be peaceful.

Today Morgan read:
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:4-7

It was amazing to experience the peace of God. We have been blessed to be flexible with work the past 4 months and focus on our time with you and your sister. Our relationship with our friends and family have been able to deepen in a way we didn’t know was possible. The peace your mom and I were able to share with each other has strengthen our marriage, and we know that is because of you.

We have had three days of non-stop rain. And last night as the sun peaked out for a few minutes I was reminded of how the disciples must have felt. The grief and hopelessness can easily take over, but we know that is not the end of the story.

In Matthew’s Gospel it tells the story of Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalen going to the tomb. The angel is there and says “Do not be afraid, for I know it is Jesus you are looking for. He is not here, He is risen, just as He said. “

James we know you are not here, but it is because of our hope in Christ that we know you are in heaven with Him right now!

James, We love you and we will share your story for the rest of our lives!

The post Baby James’ Birth Story <span class="kj-subtitle">A Story of Loss & Hope</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Your first ultrasound was perfect. It was too early to hear a heartbeat but we saw you and we cried. Your sister waved at the screen and we left the doctor’s office just like we did when I was pregnant with her. Thanksgiving came and we told family friends…. Christmas came and we talked about how this would be our only Christmas with just Evy. It was still so hard to believe that we would have a 6 month old at Christmas 2018. A week after Christmas, after our 12 week appointment, we told the world that you existed. Evy wore her “Big Sister” t-shirt and the internet rejoiced with us over you. You brought joy to people’s lives before you were even the size of an orange.

January came and our 16 week appointment went well. You had a strong heartbeat, but we didn’t do an ultrasound. Four weeks flew by and before we knew it, it was 7:30am on February 12th and we were frantically rushing to get your sister fed, dressed, and out the door in time for your 7:45am ultrasound.

We were so excited because this was the ultrasound where they were going to see if you were a boy or girl and put it in an envelope for us to open later with friends. The ultrasound tech was so sweet. She started scanning over your little body and was chatty at first… but then she seemed to be focused on her job and so we just talked to your sister and told her to wave to you on the screen. The tech said “You know, his little hand is covering his heart on the left side and so I’m going to step out and get your pictures for a minute and let him move a little”. After about five minutes, I looked at your daddy and said “Do you think something is wrong?” and he said “no” because he never wants me to worry. The door opened, the tech did a quick scan and then left again and said Dr. Troyer was going to come in. Dr. Troyer came in, sat down and basically shattered so many of our dreams within just a few minutes. The words that haunt me are “I’m concerned, your baby is very sick”.

She proceeded to go over your sweet little body and show us everything that wasn’t normal. I wasn’t crying at this point…. I was praying. Praying that whatever the tech saw was miraculously not there anymore… just anything to change what was happening. I was praying that this was just a precaution… maybe you just needed a heart surgery at birth… maybe this would resolve itself…. but she just kept going. Problem after problem. You seemed so perfect to me. Your daddy and I had just watched the ultrasound tech move all over your body just 20 minutes before and you looked so healthy and happy to us. We had no idea. We were shocked and scared. The doctor left and your daddy and I fell to pieces. Your Aunt Emy came to pick up Evy, and your Mimi met us in the waiting room just as we were leaving from the worst appointment of our lives.

It’s devastating.

We went home and your Grammy and Paw, Grandaddy and Uncle Joe met us there. We prayed for you… we asked for miracles… we thanked God for you… and we decided to open our envelope to see if you were a little boy or girl. Your sister pulled out the picture and we saw that you were a little boy. There were so many tears. It’s hard to explain what we felt that day… really that whole week. It was like living in a constant fog. I would cry to your daddy before bed. I cried in the shower. I cried when you moved. I cried when I thought about you being in pain. However, in the midst of the fog and the pain, God was giving us just bits and pieces of clarity in the chaos.

We decided to still have your sister’s first birthday party. We got up in front of our closest family and friends and shared that you were named James Michael Alsop… after your Paw, after my maiden name, after your Daddy and after our best friend. We shared that we were celebrating Evy, but we were also celebrating you… because we didn’t know how long we would have you and you deserved to be celebrated. I scanned our kitchen and everyone had tears in their eyes. It’s just so sad. The whole room felt heavy. But we celebrated and we prepared for the next step.

The next step were test results. The phone call came on Monday morning. Dr. Troyer called and shared that you are one special boy. You have Trisomy 21 which is most commonly known as Down’s Syndrome. Oh how I wish that was it. I wish you just had an extra chromosome. If you just had Down’s Syndrome and small complications, we could be prepared for surgeries and therapy and we would change our whole life to make your life easier. We would take you all over the world to get help if you needed it. We would do anything for you. We would move heaven and earth to allow you to live….. but the hydrops  . . . the fluid filling your abdomen, the fluid around your heart and lungs, the hygroma fluid around your head, the heart defect that is doing permanent damage on your little heart, the abnormalities with your stomach and your intestines, the skin edema… it all seems to be taking away our chance to love you and care for you on this side of heaven.

Our 21 week ultrasound showed us that you’re a fighter. Your body is declining but yet your little heart still keeps pumping. The doctor told us it’s a miracle that you’re still alive inside of me. As your momma…. I had a hard time seeing your sweet profile on the screen… watching you put your fist in your mouth and yawn and wiggle while simultaneously being told that we probably have no more than 4 weeks left with you living inside of me.

Everything I had envisioned about you, everything I had planned in my head, everything I expected… none of it seems like it’s going to become our reality. I pictured having a newborn baby on the dock at the lake this summer…. Evy coming in and holding you in the hospital and hearing you cry… matching outfits for the thousands of pictures I would take of you and your sister…. putting another carseat in the minivan….creating another nursery….being a family of four…. it just seems so unfair. It seems like a mean trick to wake up every morning throwing up and knowing that I probably won’t get to see the beautiful light at the end of this journey like most mommas do. It’s devastating. It affects every part of my day… every part of my life… every part of my mind. My heart just seems to ache constantly…..

But……

That’s not the end of your story, sweet boy.

We didn’t just have a devastating ultrasound and now our world is crashing down around us. We can’t stay there….. because the truth is, the story of your life is JUST beginning. This isn’t the story we wanted. This isn’t the outcome we wanted….. but this is what I know to be true.

James Michael, I know that you are not an accident.

You are not just a “random” chromosomal abnormality with a lot of extra complications… even though that’s what our medical records will show. You are not an unfortunate pregnancy that we are just going to try to forget. You are not a part of our life that we can’t bear to think about and will hide from our other children. You aren’t a story that will never be told. Your sweet life has purpose. I know this because you were our surprise…. the almighty God is the one who decided that you needed to exist inside of me.

My sweet boy, you are a miracle.

You have made your momma cling to Jesus more than any other time in her entire life.

You’ve made strangers question where they stand with their relationship with God and what they believe about eternity.

You’ve made thousands and thousands of people come together and cry out to God for our family.

You have given me a new perspective on what it means to be a momma and what it means to love.

Your life is showing a broken world that God doesn’t mess up and create accidents…

… Because if your sweet life has such deep purpose and you have never breathed one breath, how purposeful then is every single life on this earth?

How can someone hear about your life and yet think that God doesn’t have a plan for them? If God is using your beautiful, short and precious time on this earth to change lives and make an impact, how can we not look at our own lives and expect that God wants to do the same with us?

When I’m by myself and I find myself feeling overcome with sadness that I’m going to miss all of the normal parts of being your momma, I’m reminded that you were never mine to begin with. That’s a hard reality to grasp as a mom. I want to believe that I’m the only one who can take good care of you….. that you need me more than anything else…. that I can comfort you and provide for you. But the truth is, your Creator, the one who knit you together in my womb and who has known your story long before we ever took a pregnancy test is the great healer. If you never experience the pain of this earth… never have to use your strained lungs or feel the weight of gravity on your fluid-filled skin, I will have such a peace knowing that you are in the arms of Jesus where there is no more pain. Your precious body won’t be full of hard-to-pronounce medical issues. You will be whole and you will be completely healed and more safe than you would ever be here on this earth.

Picturing the Lord taking away your pain gives us peace…. and it forces us to think of the beauty of the Gospel.

Thank you Jesus for dying for our broken, sinful world and bridging the gap between us and a perfect God. Thank you for saving us and allowing us to have a place in eternity, but also giving our lives a PURPOSE here on earth. Thank you that our baby Boy’s life isn’t going to just be 5-7 months of miserable ultrasounds, tears, and a delivery that no mother wants to face. Because of the hope of heaven, I can face the pain of laboring and delivering a baby without a heartbeat. Because of the Gospel, we’re still able to say God is good… because the victory has been won. Good trumps evil and darkness and sadness over and over again because of the Cross. It is well with our souls…. Jesus, if we never get to raise our baby and you want to use his life to bring more and more broken, lost people closer to the truth of the Gospel… it is well. Let it be. We’ll do that…. we’ll share this little boy’s story for the rest of our lives here on earth. We’ll share how our marriage survived this… how we became closer because we walked through a parent’s hell together….how we can still say you are good… how we can still have hope in such sadness… how life continues after loss and how pain isn’t victorious over those who have committed their lives to you. Have your way Lord Jesus.

So baby boy, where does this leave us?

You’re still here.

Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I write this and feel you kick and move inside of me and nothing seems wrong. You seem so normal to me. Your heart-rate is strong but your poor body is failing and we are supposed to have another 15+ weeks to go. The doctors are telling me that one day when we have one of our bi-weekly ultrasounds, there just won’t be a heartbeat. I’ll be admitted to the hospital and will endure one of the scariest days of my life. But that will be my last role as your momma here on this earth and I’m going to do it as best as I can. I want to see you and hold you and so does your daddy. We want you to know that no matter what happens…. whether our miracle happens on this side of heaven or not….it’s an honor to be your parents. It’s a privilege to carry you as long as God allows me to. I sometimes let the pain steal this truth from my heart but somehow God always brings me back to it.

I realize that no mother would want this. No one would choose to walk through this. Only a few women have the painful privilege of carrying a precious baby past the point of a miscarriage and into the still birth phase. I’m one of them. I never thought this would be me…. but there was also a time in my life when I never thought that I was cut out to be a mom in the first place…. and here I am falling in love with a baby I’ll probably never even get to raise. God does amazing things in our lives and He sees the big picture.

He’s currently writing a chapter of our story that is breaking our hearts. We want more than anything to bring you home from the hospital and watch you grow up with your sister…. but His plans are greater than ours. One day we’ll be able to see the full book and how this chapter fits into how He used our family in the grand scheme of eternity.

I want you to know that your life matters to us…. every moment of it. We will love you and miss you for the rest of our lives. There will always be a part of me that longs for you to be here with us and I have a feeling that even if God blesses us with more children, no matter how many we have, we will always feel like someone is missing. You will not be forgotten, sweet James. We’ll start to heal from the pain of this season but we’ll never be “over” you and we’ll teach our other babies to celebrate you. Who knows, the story of your life may be the very story that allows Evy and future children to grasp the beautiful picture of the Gospel and there is no greater gift than that.

I praise God for you little James. We love you so much.

Love,
Momma

For those of you reading… there are two songs that most adequately describe our hearts right now as we navigate this hard season. One is Mercy Me’s “Even If” and the other is a “I Will Carry You” by Selah.  If you find yourself in a tragic season like ours, Angie Smith’s book “I Will Carry You” has been so helpful for me the last two weeks. This song was written for her baby girl’s funeral.

Our dear friend Jill took maternity portraits for us the week after we found out about James’ diagnosis and I can’t tell you how thankful I am for these. I didn’t want to do them. No part of me wanted to get dressed up to take portraits after receiving our news…. but these images are such a gift to me and I will cherish them for a lifetime. Thank you Jilly.

The post Dear James Michael <span class="kj-subtitle">A Letter to Our Baby Boy</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

As I was thinking about how to introduce her to the world, and how I just couldn’t seem to find words right now to explain what I’m feeling and what I experienced, my sweet friend Jill sent this to us. Queue the tears….. all of the tears. Michael and I talked about whether or not these images should just be shared with only family and close friends, because they are intimate and so special to us…. but this was our conclusion:

Never in our lives have we more clearly or more powerfully experienced the presence of God’s grace and blessing. For 8 years I have used this space and this platform, if you will, to share the good, the bad and the sometimes challenging parts of our life because like Ester Havens says …. “God uses stories to change other people’s stories.” We know this is personal, but it’s also powerful. There was a time when I didn’t think I would ever desire anything beyond running my business. There was another season when I thought I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. There was another season where Michael and I needed to learn to be a better team and seek God’s vision for our marriage. There was a time when I was diagnosed with a tumor that could have been cancerous and had emergency surgery. There was a time when I didn’t know how to let go of control and trust the Lord. And then there was the weekend when all of those prayers and fears and worries and struggles culminated into the most beautiful experience of our lives. Words fall short, but these pictures perfectly describe our love for our sweet Evy and the story of how she entered the world.

I’ll share more of her birth story and how the midwives at Henrico Doctors Hospital are our heros further down. :) For now, we’d love to introduce you to our sweet Evy Alsop.

(Jilly, this slideshow is the greatest gift. I will be watching this over and over again as she grows up so I never forget how special that weekend was. We love you!)

Ps. If you’re the type that enjoys lengthy birth stories, keep on reading!!

Everly James Alsop from Jill Powers on Vimeo.

EVY’S BIRTH STORY

I used to see women share about their baby’s birth story and I would think “Really? How can everyone have such a different birth story? Don’t you just go into labor for a while and then they’re here?!”. Oh how I have learned my lesson. Evy’s birth story drama started to unfold three weeks before she was born. We had a really hard time the last three weeks of my pregnancy. I’m going to share what we experienced because when we were going through everything, we searched the internet for other stories of moms in my similar situation and it gave me such hope.

There were stories, of women who I will never know, that gave me the courage to be an advocate for the birth I wanted. So my hope is that Evy’s birth story and our experience will be empowering  and encouraging for any other new moms with gestational diabetes.

So when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, that was the same time that the tumor in my hand started growing aggressively. I failed the glucose test by only 4 points and yet that automatically put me in the “High Risk” category.  After we found out about the diabetes we took the nutrition class. We learned how to prick my finger & check my blood sugar 4x a day, charted my meals and levels, went to Perinatal appointments every week for 1.5 hours of ultrasounds and fetal monitoring, and we changed our diet. We adjusted to this new lifestyle right before we found out that I had an aggressive tumor and needed emergency surgery. After the tumor was removed, my blood sugar levels seemed to be completely normal. I could eat cereal again without adding any protein, and my numbers were great and in range! So was it my tumor that caused elevated blood sugar levels? We’ll never know. I only gained 28 pounds while I was pregnant, and Evy passed all of her tests with flying colors. Nothing about my pregnancy seemed high-risk, but when you live with that title hanging over your head for 3 months, it’s easy to think that you’re abnormal and that something is bound to go wrong.

The reason this is all a part of her birth story is because at her 38 week appointment, she measured 9lbs on an ultrasound, and my OB declared that I would be having a c-section. I was shocked. I sat in her office with Michael beside me trying to hold back the tears. When I asked why, she said it was because of her size and because I was a diabetic… she also said that my pelvis couldn’t handle a big baby. When I pushed back and asked about being given a chance to deliver naturally, she told me that I would have to be ok with putting my baby at risk for shoulder dystcotia which could result in a broken collar bone, potential nerve damage or worse, brain damage. Yea. By the time we got to the parking garage, I was sobbing.

*** Let me just say… we are NOT against C-sections… my sister just had the most amazing C-section and healed 10x faster than me and was out to dinner just days after coming home from the hospital. Her birth story isn’t any less significant than mine. It was beautiful and amazing. This is just our story and our experience. Everyone is different and that’s ok! :) ***

Michael and I took Bradley Classes and we wanted a low-intervention birth. However, we were also very aware that we shouldn’t get our hearts set on any specific birth plan because really, anything could happen. We learned about how to labor naturally, how to deal with pain, and how Michael could coach me through the entire delivery process. We didn’t do the whole doula thing, but we did love our Bradley instructor, Kristine, who did private classes for us since my surgery and moving made the 12 week class impossible.

So, my goal was a natural labor. I wanted to wait and go into labor on my own, because I knew that that was my best shot at a vaginal delivery. So now that you know that, you can understand why scheduling a c-section was a shock. Because of what we had learned through our Bradley classes, we really didn’t think that there was enough reason to just schedule a c-section. So we fought for what we had a peace about. I wasn’t against a c-section if that was truly what needed to happen, but I was against never getting a chance to go into labor and see how things progressed.

I was so stressed the last three weeks of my pregnancy. I left every OB appointment in tears and torn between doing what the doctor said and doing what I had a peace about. Michael and I prayed for clarity and wisdom. I would cry before bed every night because trying to make myself go into labor was exhausting. I ate the pineapple, I took the primrose oil, I walked for miles, I did everything except drink Castor oil, and I was so tired of feeling like every day that I didn’t naturally go into labor was one day closer to a c-section. By the time my due date came, I was a mess. For two weeks I had felt like something was wrong with me. My doctor told me that if I was going to be able to deliver this baby then my body would have shown signs of progression and I was only 1cm and 50% effaced for two weeks. I felt like I was being too stubborn and naive to think that I deserved a shot at a natural delivery. But then when I thought about the reality of my situation and the need for a c-section, it didn’t add up.

Was the baby showing signs of distress? Nope. Her heart rate and fluid level was always perfect!
Am I showing signs of distress? Nope. My blood pressure was fine and I didn’t have swelling or any signs of pre-eclampsia.

So we prayed and I cried, and then we prayed some more. I felt so bad for Michael because every night before we went to sleep he would grab my hand and ask “How ya doing?” and I would lose it. It was the most horrible mental game I have ever had to play. So Sunday morning, on the 12th of February, we decided to go to the hospital tour that we had signed up for. We took the tour and this is when everything changed. I found out that Henrico Doctors Hospital has a Midwife partnership program that allows patients who want low intervention births to work with midwives right in the normal labor and delivery area of the main hospital. Michael and I just happened to have a chance to be introduced to one of the sweetest midwifes at the end of the tour and I tearfully told her my story. I was two days from my due date and my OB was convinced that a c-section was my only option. So she felt my stomach, asked me my height and shoe size, and then boldly told me that I could definitely deliver my baby. Once again, we left and I was in tears before we got onto the interstate. But these were different tears…. these were tears of hope. For the first time, someone believed in me and viewed birth the way that we did.

OB’s are trained to be able to save the day in any situation. They are surgeons who can save baby’s lives if they are in danger. It was once explained to me that OB’s view birth as inherently dangerous unless proven otherwise, and they operate and make decisions based on risks. Midwives believe labor is inherently natural and that complications will tell us otherwise.

So after some intense discussions with my OB, and a few cervical changes that happened after my due date, my doctor reluctantly signed off on me being induced on Friday the 17th! This was an answered prayer in so many ways. She wasn’t working on the weekend and so we got our wish and we went into labor and delivery as midwifery patients. I didn’t want to be induced, but they were planning to re-measure Evy the following Monday and if she was over the 4500 gram limit, a C-section was imminent. So we opted to be induced, and we called our families and best friends. I took a shower and packed my bag and cried. I was so emotional because I was so scared and my whole world was about to change. We had our best friends meet us at our house and we left with them to go eat one last dinner together before it was baby time. As we left the driveway of our house I looked at Michael and said “Oh my gosh… next time we come home we’re going to have a baby”…. queue the tears once again.

So I started the induction process with a bulb, then low levels of pitocin and I got to 5cm. But it wasn’t until they broke my water that things got real! YIKES. We had the most amazing midwives. We started with Amber who is patient and so reassuring and kind. Then Rhonda came in at 8am and I knew that she was going to be the one delivering my baby. We loved her. When she talked to me she would sit on the end of the bed and place her hand on my leg. She loves the Lord and she believed with every ounce of her that I could do this.

After breaking my water, I experienced contractions that can only be explained as nearly intolerable and excruciating. I cried and hung on to Michael’s neck and squeezed his hand every time one would start. I knew that contractions without an epidural would be hard…. but contractions at a pitocin level of 20 were unbearable. My contractions were 3 minutes apart but after three hours of this pain, we found out that I wasn’t any further dilated, and I have never felt the wind get knocked out of my sails more than in that moment. I was in so much pain that I was giving up. At 8cm we decided to get an epidural and I had about an hour of not being in excruciating pain… then I got sick twice and I started feeling pain despite the epidural. My legs were shaking and I felt so weak. Michael sat beside me and in tears, I told him that if Rhonda came to check me and I wasn’t 10cm, I was ready for a c-section. The thought of potentially pushing labor to the max, and then not having the strength to push out this big baby was terrifying. I would never forgive myself if Evy got stuck and she suffered because of my decision to push. Michael and I prayed together and Rhonda came in and told me that before I made a big decision like that, we needed to see if anything had changed.

She checked me and Evy was almost +3 station and I was 10cm and fully effaced. Basically, Evy was as close to being born as she could possible be without me pushing. Michael and I had prayed for clarity and we got it. Rhonda told me it was time to push and in a split second my mind had to change gears. I had already convinced myself that I couldn’t do it, and Rhonda held my face and told me to forget what I had heard the last 2 weeks and just focus on what was happening…. I was about to meet my baby.

The nurses prepped the room and pushing began. I remember being in pain in my ribs for some reason with every contraction and I also remember Michael being really excited. He was so excited to meet his little girl and I don’t blame him. We have been through so much in this season and this final hurdle seemed like redemption was just on the other side. I pushed for 30 minutes and all I remember was our nurse Sarah telling me that I was killing it and that I was hours ahead of where I needed to be. Then I remember Michael telling Jill to stand behind the curtain to wait until it was time to take pictures of her being born and Rhonda said “Oh, I think she needs to come in now, we’re close”. Then I remember Rhonda saying that the next push will be the one that led to meeting our baby and if that doesn’t give you the courage to push as hard as I possibly could, I don’t know what else will. I remember being so hopeful and so terrified at the same time. I never screamed but I do remember praying “Dear Jesus help me” because I knew my own strength was gone a long time ago. I remember pushing and praying, and then I heard “Her head is out annnnd her shoulders are out…. Michael, grab your daughter”….. and I lost it.

Michael laid our first baby on my chest and I held her and wept. It was over…. she was here and she was beautiful & healthy. I delivered a 9lb 10oz baby girl without any issues. I cried and held on to Michael with one hand and held our sweet Evy with the other. It seemed like a dream. The main thing I remember was the RELIEF that I felt. In a matter of minutes, all of my worry and fear and stress was over. Jill recorded audio of Everly entering the world and all you hear are my sobs, Jill’s sobs and Michael crying and laughing at the same time…. and then you hear the sweetest little cry. It was the greatest moment of my life. We loved our wedding day, but nothing will compare to meeting our baby girl. Rhonda hugged me and held my face and told me how proud she was of me, and I couldn’t even find words to appropriately thank her for believing in me when it seemed like no one else did.

Our birth story for sweet Everly didn’t go exactly as we had planned, but I can honestly say that we don’t care, now that she is here. It was beautiful and exactly how it was supposed to be. We are so thankful that we were advocates for the birth that we wanted and that we stood up for what we had a peace about. We are thankful for the midwives and that Henrico Doctors Hospital gave us the chance to have the birth we wanted. Rhonda was the greatest gift to us. She loves the Lord, she has delivered over 2,000 babies and she was so clearly made for her career. I love meeting people who are doing what they were designed to do and their passion overflows through the way that they serve. I could do a whole blog post about how it’s the LITTLE things that make such a MASSIVE impact when it comes to medical care, but I’ll leave that for another day. For now, I’m just going to thank Rhonda for sitting on the end of the bed and holding my leg when she talked to me, for never using language that was hard to understand and for always telling me that I was strong and capable.

After months of medical worries, a surgery, gestational diabetes and being scared into thinking I couldn’t deliver my baby, she’s finally here. We are so thankful. Michael and I love being parents to this precious little girl and even though we’re a little sleep deprived, we know that this stage doesn’t last forever, and we’re cherishing these first few weeks. God is so good.

The post Introducing Everly James Alsop <span class="kj-subtitle">Her Birth Story</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

One night in early December, I was opening the fridge and holding a glass pyrex dish with my right hand. The door caught the dish and forced my index finger to pull away from the other fingers abruptly, and it was painful! I sat on the couch in tears for 10-15 minutes and then the pain subsided. Michael told me to get an X-ray at Patient First just to make sure it was ok and so I did that the next day, and the X-ray was abnormal. It didn’t necessarily tell us anything except that my entire knuckle was dark while the other bones in my hand were not. This was the one appointment that Michael couldn’t go to and so naturally, I walked out of the doctor’s office and googled “dark bones in X-ray” and bone cancer was the first thing that popped up. Cue the tears.

Obviously my googling had to stop. It wasn’t helping! So I scheduled an appointment to see an orthopedic hand specialist. He told me it was probably a cyst that was swollen and to just wait it out until after pregnancy. His bedside manner was less than desirable and it seemed he treated us like we were just a young couple overly worried because we were pregnant. He didn’t even look us in the eye when he was talking to us (if you can’t tell, I wasn’t impressed!). So we listened to him and left with no real diagnosis or treatment….. just wait and see.

Fast forward 4 days later and it’s 4:30 am on a Saturday, and I’m in excruciating pain. Michael finds me in tears and doubled over on the side of the bed. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It felt like a knife was being stuck into my knuckle and twisted around. Michael has known me my entire life and has never seen me in pain like this, so I jokingly said maybe this was God’s way of preparing me for labor! Well, the pain got worse and the joking stopped. We headed to the ER and they couldn’t do anything because of the pregnancy… eventually the pain was so bad that I didn’t want to eat and I couldn’t sleep. 12 hours of crying from excruciating pain can be super stressful on a baby and so even though I didn’t want to, I had to take Percocet just to experience some relief. We made it to the following Monday and the same orthopedic doctor told me I had an infection and gave me an antibiotic. We asked him for an MRI and he recommended an ultrasound of my hand instead. So we got that done…. only to find out that the radiologist thought my case was severe enough to order a rushed MRI. They did the MRI two days later… which is pretty fast for an MRI… and we had to get creative because you’re supposed to lie on your stomach and being 8 months pregnant, that wasn’t possible!

After 7 days of leaving multiple messages, with no response from the doctor (again . . . not impressed) we finally heard back that I needed to see a hand surgeon who is also an oncologist. Keep in mind, this was ALL happening the week of Christmas while we were MOVING, and my sister had a baby on Christmas Day and she lives 6 hours away. Little Micah entering the world was actually a perfect distraction from all of this craziness! It was a Christmas to remember for sure!!

So that leads us to this past Monday. There are only two hand surgeon oncologists in the state and because I’m almost 9 months pregnant, I got an appointment fast! We’re so thankful for that! We met with the surgeon and it was a different experience than what we had been through the last 3 weeks. He showed us the MRI, took a new X-Ray and then proceeded to thoroughly explain what he thinks is going on…

We’re HOPING that I have a giant-cell tumor in my index finger knuckle that is benign. If this is the case, I would be one in a million pregnant women who this happens to. What probably happened is this tumor has been growing the last 8 months because of the growth hormones from pregnancy, and it has slowly been weakening and eating away at my bone. This probably caused a fracture with the fridge incident, and the excruciating pain I experienced was the tumor pushing through the fractured area into the soft tissue. Yikes. So what does all of this mean???

First of all, my brides don’t need to worry… I’ve already taught myself how to shoot using other fingers and I’m a pro at it! No need to be alarmed. But in this current season of our life… all of this does mean that we’re left with a lot of unknowns. I’m having hand surgery under a nerve block on Tuesday and we’re praying for the best. The worst case scenarios are honestly very scary and hard to think about…none are life threatening…but they could be life altering. I’m about to become a first time mom in a matter of weeks with an aggressive tumor growing in the hand that my career is dependent on. We didn’t plan on this or expect this outcome. It’s not something we want to be going through and we’d be lying if we said we weren’t scared. I’ve had my fair share of meltdowns and because of normal baby appointments, gestational diabetes appointments and now hand appointments… we’ve had more than our fair share of doctor’s visits as well.

We’re asking for prayer for my surgery on Tuesday. We know that God has a plan and a purpose for all of this even though right now we just feel like we’re being given a continual wall of obstacles right before one of our biggest life transitions. We’re praying for peace, no cancer, a simple surgery and for the tumor to be smaller than the MRI shows! We’re also praying for a fast recovery so that I can hold our baby girl and take care of her the way any new mom would want to.

So if you’ve been wondering where the blog posts have been and where the educational emails have disappeared to and why we’re extra low-key… it isn’t just because I’m 9 months pregnant… or because we just moved…. it’s because all of this is going on. We believe in the power of prayer and so we’ve spent two full days texting friends and boldly asking for prayer. This isn’t something I love sharing with the internet, but we know that a lot of you will join us in prayer and we’re so very thankful for that. We serve a big God who isn’t shocked or surprised by anything that is going on with my hand. There is a purpose behind this season and we know that in time, we’ll see it and we’ll be thankful for it.

So while potentially being “one in a million” isn’t cool in this situation, we are hopeful and we’re thankful to be surrounded by friends and covered in prayer!

Ps. We’re also thankful for awesome doctors! We’ve experienced awesome doctors and not-so-awesome doctors throughout this experience, and we’re currently in the hands of a guy we really like and trust, and that’s a huge blessing!!

The post When Being One in a Million isn’t Cool <span class="kj-subtitle">Life Update & Prayer Request</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Now, before I continue…. I want to be sure that I emphasize that what we’re experiencing is insignificant compared to what others have to walk through, and I’m so very aware of that. I don’t ever want to come across as ungrateful or unthankful for this season that we’re in, because I know that this little girl is the greatest blessing of our life thus far!! We’re so grateful and I would never want a post like this to somehow discredit other’s pain. That would never be our intention. Our goal is to help people and encourage others in our current reality.  If I can provide some POSITIVE google search results for Gestational Diabetes… I think it’s worth it to share our experience! It’s never a good thing to have your body struggle to process sugars and there are risks that are associated with having GD. I’ve found that when you search about being pregnant and having GD, it can be a little scary, and you only hear about risks and warnings. Well, maybe this can be a little light at the end of the tunnel for those who are trying to figure out what this will mean for you.

PRICKING MY FINGER : So I’m pricking my finger four times a day to check my blood-sugar levels… this isn’t ideal and it takes a lot of planning to make sure I don’t miss my time frames! Every time I prick, I’m just praying my levels are good, and I’ve finally learned how to prick my fingers without having to do it twice! Ouch! So that’s the down side…. here is the silver lining:

• Learning to remember to do something on a schedule, two hours after every meal, is preparing us for newborn life. We’re not used to segmented scheduling, and so I’m trying to view this not-so-fun new aspect of my routine as training for February when I’m hopefully on a nursing schedule.
• Even though I hate the prick, it’s nice to know what my levels are multiple times a day, because if more unnecessary sugar goes to the baby then the bigger she can get, and she’s already measuring really big!
• Michael and I are taking “teamwork” to a whole new level. I’m not the best morning person, and I have to prick my finger as soon as I wake up.  So Michael sets an alarm, gets the lancer ready and basically does it for me because I’m half asleep. Good husband status.

COUNTING EVERY CARB : Michael and I just went to a two hour nutrition class for Gestational Diabetes and I honestly walked in with a chip on my shoulder, because I did NOT want to be there. I’d rather be at home blogging our “Behind the Scenes” post for 2016, but instead I was in a room with a dietician and samples of plastic potatoes, fruit and beans scattered across the table and giant workbooks to read through. More on that experience below. I know how to read nutrition labels but adjusting carb and protein levels down to the exact GRAMS for EVERY meal is a lot of work…. however, here’s the silver lining to that:

• During our nutrition class, we met a couple who is running a business that is WAY more demanding than ours, and she was diagnosed with GD at week 11. That means that she’s going to spend 3x the amount of time dealing with GD than we are. That put things in perspective, and we left with new friends and a new attitude of gratitude that I was diagnosed so late in my pregnancy.
• I’m eating well. I never had a POOR diet, but I did crave cereal and chocolate milk…. not together… but those were my favorite treats. I now have a big reason to track and monitor everything I eat, and I’ll be healthier because of it. The truth is, I feel better and have more energy when I’m balancing my carbs and proteins and so that’s allowing me to get more done!
• Because I’m monitoring my carbs and avoiding sugars, I’m hoping this will mean that the weight loss journey after giving birth will be slightly easier. Not only am I counting carbs, but I’m also exercising more because that helps my levels too. I know this isn’t promised, but since I’ve gained 25 pounds and I have 8 weeks to go, this new change in lifestyle is MAKING me take the steps needed to be healthier for delivery and recovery.

MORE DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS : I hate doctors appointments, and we literally just doubled them because of this new diagnosis. However, there’s a silver lining here as well.

• Every week we get to know that our little girl is doing ok and if something changes, we’ll know fast.
• More ultrasounds! We’re getting to experience ultrasounds almost every week just to make sure she’s not growing too fast! Last week her measurements were a little startling considering how far we have left to go, but the doctor isn’t worried and I’m trying not to be too! I’m thankful for more chances to “see” her these last 8 weeks even though the reason for the ultrasound isn’t ideal.

So overall, we’re trying to be positive and focus on the silver linings and not the new demands of this diagnosis. The other news is that apparently I have a cyst/weird bone growth/tumor-like thing in the knuckle of my index finger…. on my right hand. It’s incredibly painful to shake people’s hands, pick up anything using that finger and last but certainly not least, that’s the hand I use to hold my camera! So that’s not good, but we’re seeing specialists about this issue too and thankfully, we don’t have a wedding for several months because of maternity leave. So we have plenty of time to get this fixed!!!

Whew! What a week right? It’s been a little crazy over here! Michael and I are living in our apartment with just our BED (that now serves as our couch) and our desk and a TV. That’s it. We have about 5-6 outfits that we’re cycling through for the next little while, but our parents have helped us pack up our life the last two weeks so that we’re ready to move when the house is done…. which is hopefully next week. The OTHER crazy thing is that we’re sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to hear from either my sister or our best friends ANY DAY now. They are BOTH having babies in the next two weeks so we have our bags packed just in case!

COULD. DECEMBER. GET. ANY. CRAZIER?!!!!!!

We’re thankful, we’re grateful and we’re trying our best to not have mini-meltdowns when the emotions get the best of us….and when I say “we” or “us” …. I mean ME. Michael is wonderful…. the ultimate silver lining in all of this is that I’m not doing it by myself! So all of this is why you haven’t heard from us this week and may not hear a whole lot from us next week depending on how things go! I hope this is encouraging for those in our situation with GD . . . and now we’re off to continue packing!!!!!

The post Why We’ve Been MIA <span class="kj-subtitle">The Silver Lining of Gestational Diabetes</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

He agreed with me! We didn’t believe it! So I took another…. and it was immediately positive!! I remember my hands were shaky and we didn’t even know what to say. I was too shocked to even cry (that came later!). We called Buddy and Jill right then and there because they had JUST left our house 30mins prior. We called them and we didn’t even know what to say. I had a REALLY shaky video of the call and once they answered, Michael and I just sat in silence and they guessed what was happening!! Queue the tears!!!

We had an engagement session that night in DC and so we made plans to tell our families on the way up and on the way back through. We were so blessed to be able to tell our entire immediate families in person all on the same day!!! Some of you may remember that we lost a dear friend back in June and we actually found out about the baby the day before his funeral. In some ways, it seemed like God was giving our family a new sense of hope during such a hard week. I start crying every time I think about it. We know that this is such a gift that we don’t deserve. We also know that this little person was God’s idea to begin with and that He has been planning his/her life since before time began. Every time we see an ultrasound we’re just amazed at how miraculous new life is! My baby app tells me every week that organs are forming, growing and developing and even from week FIVE, this little girl/guy had a heartbeat! It was the size of an APPLE SEED and it had a HEARTBEAT! It’s just all so amazing!!

What’s also amazing is that I get to be pregnant with my little sister. It’s so perfect because she’s not a worrier. I’m the worrier of the two of us! So she’s experiencing everything 8 weeks ahead of me and can reassure me that certain things are normal and that nothing is wrong. We just spent a week together at the lake and my favorite memory was when we were sleeping in the same bed one night and after staying up talking until 2 am, we decided we needed to go to bed! So we rolled over and tried to fall asleep for about 10 mins and then I realized that I stayed up way too late and I felt kinda sick and needed to eat something before I started gagging!! So I said “Oh no Emy! I need food!” and she responded with “Well lucky for you I brought the whole bag of animal crackers to bed with me!”!! She rolled over with our snack and we laughed about how embarrassing it would be if someone walked in and saw the two of us pregnant ladies munching on animal crackers at 2 O’clock in the morning!!! It’s such a gift to be pregnant together. We always hoped for this but we knew that is wasn’t likely that it would happen. I get teary just thinking about how gracious God has been in the timing of it all.

Speaking of the timing of it all, I’m due on VALENTINES DAY!! My sister Emy is due on CHRISTMAS DAY!! What’s even crazier to think about is that there will be TWO babies at my brother’s wedding in MAY!!! Needless to say BOTH sets of our parents are thrilled and we’re about to experience one of the most exciting seasons of our lives!!! We DO plan on finding out the GENDER in a couple of months and as of today, I’m 14 weeks! Everything looks normal and we’re praying everyday for a healthy baby and healthy pregnancy. I have had moments of feeling nauseous but I’ve never actually gotten sick. Fingers crossed that I’m past that point but who knows! I’ve been so blessed that I have made it through the majority of our HOTTEST weddings this summer without any issues!! We should be in our new house two months before the baby and our builders have been GREAT about understanding that we have a hard deadline now!! We’re aiming for a mid-November move-in!!!

We are so thankful for this season. There is so much happening and so much to learn along the way. We’re SO thankful for all of the sweet comments, texts and calls. You all are so good to us. Thank you for being so excited for us and this new adventure!!!! :):)

View Our Announcement Video Here!

The post We’re having a BABY!!! <span class="kj-subtitle">2016-2017 The Most Exciting Year Yet! </span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

The post Construction House Tour! <span class="kj-subtitle">With Two Surprises! </span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Ok! So after you buy the land and make sure it perks and have the drain field designed, then it’s time to get the ball rolling on your construction loan and start applying for the building permit. (Which can take FOREVER!) So here we are with our builders… trying to mark out where the footprint of the house will be. Talk. about. nerve-wracking!

We thought we had the perfect spot… and then they started digging… and I FREAKED OUT because I thought the house was turned at the wrong angle! So naturally….

I called my momma to come take a look at it!! She drove all the way down from work one evening to look at the hole in the ground and tell me it was OK!

I think I was just so scared of making a mistake because if the house isn’t sitting right, there is NO GOING BACK!!!!!

So yay! Now we’re ok to pour the footers!

Oh and get drone footage of course! Thanks to Tyler!

We have SO much red clay! Bokeh bends in!

No idea WHAT is going on here!

THEN…. the building permit finally comes through! (did you know that you can start digging without the permit!? That gave us a heads start!)

We have a FOUNDATION and BASEMENT WALLS!

I used a 24mm for this…. so if you’re a photographer, you know that it STRETCHES BIG TIME! So no, we’re not building a shopping center…we just have a basement that looks massive in this image!

My boys!

Then the framing begins! We aren’t finishing the basement but we are framing it out so that in the future, we can make an apartment down there for anyone who may need it!

Corey is going to kill me for posting this!

And then this past week… WALLS ON THE FIRST FLOOR went up! CRAZY!!! I forgot how fun this phase is!! Those are bathroom windows!

This really isn’t a good image to end on because it doesn’t show the front porch. It’s really hard to picture what it’s actually going to look like at this phase but with each step, we get closer and closer to seeing what the final product will be!!! We’re so excited!!!!

Be sure to check out other Home Made for Hosting Posts:

The Story of How We Bought Land That Wasn’t for Sale!

 Breaking Ground! 

Our Temporary Home!

Why We’re Moving!

The post The Beginning Phases of the House Build <span class="kj-subtitle">Building A Home Made for Hosting</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

The footers are being poured next week and we’ll start to really see the outline of the house!! It’s fun to stop by and see the progress but it’s even BETTER to see it from ABOVE!!! Thanks to Tyler Herrinton, we have DRONE footage of our DIRT!!! Somehow he can make our dirt feel like the beginning of pride and prejudice!! Enjoy!

Big thanks to Tyler for this!!!

To read about how we bought land that wasn’t for sale click HERE! 

To read how we selected our builders, click HERE!

To view our other personal posts, click HERE!

The post Breaking Ground! <span class="kj-subtitle">Building a Home Made for Hosting</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

So, back to that night when we saw this dream land for sale! We went to go see it bright and early one Saturday morning in December and as soon as we turned on the street, I grabbed Michael’s arm and said “Oh my gosh! This is it! I LOVE THIS AREA!!!”. We arrived at the end of the street where there were 15 acres for sale and it was literally EVERYTHING we had hoped for… even down to the comcast boxes! We got so excited and we wanted to contact a realtor so that we could walk the whole property. This is when it gets sad. This road ended with a cul-de-sac and a beautiful wide open field but that wide open field at the end of the street wasn’t the property that was for sale. If you look at the GIS system, the lines of the property that was for sale was a little sliver of field on the left that led back to 15 acres of wooded land with 75% of it in the flood zone. We tried everything we could think of to make the front sliver of this land work. You can see my photoshopped plot ideas below. The restrictions from the property line and the flood zone left us with minimal house options that would be RIGHT on the road. It was heartbreaking because even though this land wasn’t open and gorgeous, it was still in the RIGHT area with internet options and some potential! :

See… I tried! It just wasn’t possible! Yikes!

The land at the end of the street that we first fell in love with wasn’t for sale and so we decided to make a low offer on the 15 acres with the flood zone just to see. However, right before we made an offer, our realtor said “You know, you could always just ASK the owner of this property that you LOVE if they would ever consider selling!”. Well, this land was PERFECT and acres of land outside of Short Pump are in high demand so 1. We knew it would be too expensive and 2. If that owner wanted to SELL his land, it would be on the market. So why even bother, right? Well Michael and I went home that night and googled our little hearts out. We found the owner of the land and we decided to take a risk of rejection so we crafted a letter!

We knew that the couple who owned the land lived right beside the property that we were in love with and so we decided to make the letter personal because after all, if there was ANY chance of making this happen, they would probably want to know who their neighbors would be! So, we told them our story and we included a little picture of the three of us. Then, we placed the letter in the mail box without using the US Postal service and evidently, that is illegal. So that was our first strike against us. We left the letter with close to ZERO hope that we would ever hear from them. A day passed and Michael’s phone rang. I stood beside him in our foyer as I listened to a sweet, elderly man’s voice say that he had been thinking about breaking off 7 acres and selling it and we were the first to ask at the right time!! By this point, I was jumping up and down and trying not to let my excitement translate through the phone too much!!!

We immediately called our parents and told them the news… “THEY ARE GOING TO SELL US THE LAND THAT WASN’T FOR SALE!!!”. Well, that excitement continued until we realized just how amazing this property was and how expensive it could possibly be. We prayed about it and then we waited for the offer. I remember it perfectly. It was Valentine’s day weekend in February of 2014. We pulled in the driveway like we always did and Michael got the mail. He threw away the junk mail and then I heard him say ‘Katelyn! Come here!”. We had received a formal letter from Mr. & Mrs. Rich with the price. We opened it and we couldn’t believe what we saw!!! We could afford it!!!! It was a miracle!!!! I cried, called Buddy and Jill, called our parents and we celebrated the fact that we were officially buying LAND THAT WASN’T FOR SALE!!!!!

Now, the most amazing part of the story isn’t that we bought land that wasn’t for sale, it is that we bought it from the sweetest couple. Mr. & Mrs. Rich are our grandparent’s age and since we did all of this without a realtor, we met with them at their home multiple times and they even hosted a neighborhood Christmas dinner and we were the guests of honor!!! Can you believe that?! I could cry just thinking about it. Not only did we find our dream lot, we found the sweetest neighbors too!!!

We had to go through SIX MONTHS of hoops with the county to get the land rezoned and divided. One of my favorite memories was attending the local Planning Commission meeting where they voted on our rezoning. When it went through, we celebrated with what I assume was Mr. & Mrs. Rich’s first “selfie”! :):):) We closed in August and we’ve been playing ball with Bokeh on our land in the evenings ever since!!! Now isn’t that a STORY?! It makes me cry just thinking about it! God had his hand in this from the very beginning! We’re going to live on 7 acres in the country… just minutes from Short Pump… with hard wired internet …. and a view… and we have the sweetest neighbors! We are so thankful!!!

If you want to take a peek of what it looks like, here’s some fun drone footage from our good friend & amazing videographer Tyler Herrinton!!!! Ps. Don’t miss Bokeh Boy at the end… he evidently doesn’t like drones. Also, if you want to follow our house journey, you can follow along on the “Home Made for Hosting” Instagram account HERE! 

The house will eventually sit to the right of where Michael is walking here…. 

Most of the acreage is cleared but we have a buffer of trees behind us with an open grove area… that I’m SURE will be full of mosquitos in the summer!! Yikes!

If you can’t tell… Bokeh loves wide open spaces!!

Our little creek!!

CLIFF NOTES VERSION:
– We dreamed of land
– We thought we found land
– The land we loved wasn’t actually for sale
– We were brave and put a letter in a stranger’s mailbox asking to buy the land that wasn’t for sale!
(Found out this was illegal!)
– We prayed… a lot.
– The owners offered us the land! WHAT?!
– We could actually afford it!
– We had it rezoned!
– We bought it in AUGUST! And I still can’t believe it!!
**The full version is much more exciting!**

We’re Building Again, Read The Story Why HERE!

If you want to see pictures of our current home, click Here!

The post How We Bought Land That Wasn’t For Sale <span class="kj-subtitle">The Power of Asking</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

…. And it has been perfect…. except for the fact that our workshops have been way more successful than we ever thought! We were going to do two per year but because of the demand, we started doing four a year. We quickly started to realize that having a successful business and running workshops in your front yard isn’t completely HOA friendly. I think we could have gotten away with two, but four was a little much with the styled shoot, parking and excitement that happens on workshop days! So, we started praying about what to do. We built this house for others. That was the goal and the vision from the very beginning. In the last 3 years, we have had over 250 photographers come through our doors for educational purposes. We have learned over the years that we feel most at home when we are SERVING with our SPACE!!

So, what should we do? We know that in-person teaching and training has our hearts. We also know that we don’t want to host workshops outside of our home. So, we started dreaming….. again. We would lay in bed at night and scan through Trulia and Zillow together looking for land in our area and it was hard to come by. The 4-7 acre lots that we were looking for would pop up and be ridiculously expensive and by the time we bought the land, we wouldn’t be able to afford the HOUSE! So, we prayed about it and we waited. This was in Fall of 2014. December 12th 2014, we were heading to our Bridal Spa Day that we host for our KJ Brides and I told Michael that there was a little piece of land about 5 miles from us that I wanted to see beforehand…. ya know…. just in case it was “THE SPOT”. Well, it was! We found the most perfect 7 acres of land and we purchased it back in August. It’s been waiting on us every since!!! The story of the land is RIDICULOUS because IT WASN’T EVEN FOR SALE! … More on that later! Stay tuned!!!

We found the land and decided to put our house on the market in the spring of 2014. We went through dozens and dozens of showings, complaint after complaint and ZERO offers. The house had to be spotless every time we left for more than two hours at a time. It literally felt like we weren’t living there because it had to be kept so tidy and clean!! Fast forward ten months later and finally, we got the call that we had been waiting for!! Jamie from Jenni & Co realty called and said those four beautiful words…”You have an OFFER!!”  The story of the offer is one-of-kind as well! Gosh, I have so many stories to tell apparently!! Stay tuned for that as well!

So, we are closing in a few weeks and we’re moving into our VERY FIRST APARTMENT!!!!! And we’re actually REALLY excited about it because we’ve never had a community POOL before!! haha When you grow up in the country, you don’t have “pools”….. you have CREEKS and MUD to play in. Pools were for those “fancy” people! ha!

Life is crazy right now. Some of you saw my instagram about our “exciting news” and I’m sorry it isn’t a “KJ Baby”! ha! Ya’ll crack me up! But this is seriously SUCH an answered prayer for us. We have been hoping and praying that our idea of moving and living on several acres in the country wasn’t just our idea. We know that God has a plan for us and this space and we’re trying to trust him in the process. It’s hard to trust when your home was voted “TOP TEN MOST VIEWED” by Zillow in the entire nation and yet it was the only one that wouldn’t sell. It’s humbling and it makes you realize that you’re not in control…. at all.

I have so much more to share about this story… like the house plans… where the land even IS… how we acquired it…. when it will be done… what our vision for workshops will be in the new space, etc. I have a BIG dream but I’m too afraid to say it right now and so I’m just going to leave you hanging for a while until I see God pointing us in a certain direction. The part that I CAN SHARE is that our “A Home Made for Hosting” series on our blog was actually created with THIS HOUSE BUILD in mind! So, we’ll be posting here and there but if you really want to see our behind-the-scenes of the process (like me trying to decide on exterior siding samples while walking through the Atlanta airport), we are so excited to share that we have a “A Home Made for Hosting” Instagram account!!!!! YAYY!!!!!! Enjoy watching this massive project unfold on Instagram! We still can’t believe it’s finally about to START!!!!

Thanks for reading my novel! Stay tuned for the “Story of Alsop Acres” and how God’s timing is perfect in so many ways. I also wanted to thank ALL OF YOU who commented, texted, and encouraged us in the last 10 months when it seemed like we had made all of the wrong decisions and that this house was never going to be snatched up! We appreciate you more than you know. I actually sat at Chipotle during our final showing and cried reading your comments on Instagram because they were so encouraging!  The social world can be fake and annoying and petty sometimes but this little piece of it that we have is full of so much love. We’re thankful for you ALL!!! Here’s to another crazy journey as we build our “Home Made for Hosting”!!!!!

FOLLOW “A HOME MADE FOR HOSTING” HERE
KEEP UP WITH US ON SNAPCHAT : “KATELYNALSOP”

To view other posts about our Home, here are some links to check out :

My Office

The Living Room

The House Tour

The Morning Room

The post We Waited an Entire Year for This! <span class="kj-subtitle">Join Us On The Journey</span> appeared first on Katelyn James | Online Educator for Photographers and Entrepreneurs.

Michael and I visited the model home on a Friday and we were signing a contract on Sunday. It seems like a whirlwind looking back and it was! Everything happened so fast but we knew it was the right direction for us and we’re so thankful for our new space. As we continued through the design process and the building of the home, we learned a few key things. Some of these words of wisdom came from making mistakes and some came from great advice from others who had built many homes of their own. Enjoy!!

1. When signing off on the floor plan, ANALYZE EVERYTHING. Windows, doorways, rooflines, etc. We bought the floor plan of the model home and there were several items that we thought were included but were really “upgrades”…. and “upgrades” add up FAST!

2. Visit DAILY if possible! We are so thankful that we were able to visit our home site almost every single day! This ensured that we found mistakes quickly so that they could be addressed. 

3. TAKE PICTURES!! And take a lot of them! Take pictures of all of the beams and boards before the drywall goes up. This allows you to see which way your boards run and it makes stud finding easy for decorating! 

4. Ask Questions…. even if they seem dumb! You’re the one paying for this house… and you deserve to know absolutely everything about it!!  This is your baby! 

5.  Ask for advice and hire help! We hired a dear friend of ours  to help us pick out wall colors and this was a LIFESAVER! The ONE ROOM that I selected the color by myself is a hideous shade of sea foam. I thought it would be more “mint”!! We’ve never shown that bathroom on the blog because of it’s wall color disaster but we’ll fix it one day! 

6.  Upgrade the areas of the home that will be used the most. For example, our upstairs bathroom is as basic as they come! However, our downstairs master bath has a tiled, walk-in shower. We are SO thankful for this advice. We splurged on something that increased resale value and we use it everyday. We also decided to carpet the stairs. This isn’t as pretty as hardwood stairs but since we have a first floor master, we only use the upstairs when we have guests. One day, our upstairs bedrooms will be used for kids and carpeted steps may save up a few trips to the ER…. not to mention it saved over $3000! WOWSERS! We almost went with hardwood stairs and I’m so thankful we saved that money! 

7. Weigh your options. For us, if we wanted to stay within our budget, we could either have a tray ceiling in our bedroom or a door “handles” instead of door “knobs”. They were the same price but we could only pick one. We decided to go with function over “pretty” and we now have door handles that are easy to open with an elbow when you’re carrying groceries or laundry.  We approached a lot of our decision making this way and it allowed us to stay within budget. If we wanted to have a 60/40 sink, we weren’t going to get the handsoap pump built into the granite. If we were going to have awesome faucets in the half bath, we had to use standard faucets in the other bathrooms. This was a great way to stay under budget but still splurge in a few areas. 

8. Be picky and complain…. nicely. If molding isn’t straight… it should be. If a light fixture isn’t centered, it should be. This is a brand new house! It’s easy to think “Well, that’s not a big deal I guess” but then when you think about what you’re paying for this, you’ll realize it needs to be as close to perfect as possible! 

9. Do everything in WRITING! Verbal conversations mean absolutely nothing in the home construction world. If you call your site manager to tell them something needs to be changed, you need to shoot them an email as well. Have proof of everything you communicate about. We were treated very well throughout our whole process with Eagle but we did have a few hick-ups along the way and we learned that written communication is key!

10. Share the process! Allow friends and family to visit the site during construction and share in your excitement!! We took many friends to our construction zone during those 6 months and it was so awesome for them to see it under construction and now as a home!! 

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While we were trying to figure out what Michael’s next step was going to be…. I was having mini meltdowns because I needed to hire someone… ANYONE! I needed help…. big time. I needed someone who loved to serve people… who enjoyed second shooting….someone who would love to travel with me on the weekends and someone who believed in my dreams for this crazy business. I needed an office manager, an organizer and someone that would help me accomplish BIG goals. This person needed to have a flexible schedule, they needed to understand that my business is also my ministry and the needed to be permanent because I didn’t want to retrain a new college intern every 6 months.  As Michael and I stayed up one night on a marriage retreat… crying and praying about what the next phase of life was going to look like for us, it hit us…. like a ton of bricks! I needed HIM. I needed a partner and the most ideal partner in the whole world would be my husband. Here I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay someone to work with me and how I was going to find the PERFECT person and the answer was right in front of me. We didn’t decide on this decision immediately…. we took 6 full months to pray about this, seek wise counsel and talk to those that have done this and have done it well. The Lord is so incredibly faithful because over those 6 months, we had the opportunity to sit down and receive advice from the three husband/wife teams we look up to the most…. JD & Jasmine, Justin & Mary, and Zach & Jody. I don’t even know how that happened… but it did…. and it was so encouraging. It was encouraging because we realized 3 things:

1. Ministry isn’t determined by a paycheck…. Ministry is about how you give your life away for the sake of Christ. That can be done as volunteer youth leaders AND as small business owners. How silly of us to worry that we would have LESS impact in our teen’s lives just because we weren’t on the payroll. God doesn’t work like that.

2. We were created for this. Michael’s gifts and his passions are much different than we thought they were 3 years ago. He loves to serve, he loves to equip leaders and he loves to manage things behind the scenes.

3. Life changes…. and that’s ok. Things change… and sometimes our plans are not God’s plans. This is not what we envisioned 3 years ago…. it’s far from it actually!! We were so set in our own vision for our life that when God started to move us into a new direction… it completely and totally rocked our world.

So after almost a full year of discerning and praying and seeking out what our next step is…. Michael is officially my business partner. We’re a husband and wife team…. a package deal if you will. :) We’re excited…. and scared…. and PUMPED…. and intimidated…. and yet so ready for this.  We’ve been trying this out in 2012. Michael shot 14 weddings with me this year and we’re about to shoot two back to back weddings this weekend… one in DC and the next in NYC (see why I need help?!!). We’re excited to spend weekends TOGETHER and to take this business to the next level. Someone asked me what’s in store for KJP in 2013 and I couldn’t give them an answer…. because I have no idea what we’re capable of together! I’m not by myself anymore…. and that’s SO empowering!!

Michael and I are still really involved with our youth group.  We’re the annoying volunteers that show up to EVERYTHING!! :) We just adore these kids and while Michael isn’t on staff, we know that right now, as a young married couple with no kids, the youth group is where we want to give our free time and it’s where our heart is. These teenagers are our FRIENDS! We love them and we’re so excited that we’re staying in this same community.  If you didn’t see before, we’re building a house right outside of shortpump and we’re pumped to have BIGGER Tuesday night dinners, sleepovers where girls aren’t crammed 4 to a couch and parties galore! (To our future neighbors, we’ll have sound proof walls, I promise:).

Michael and I are incredibly blessed with awesome mentors, amazing parents, really cool siblings and an unbelievable church family both here in Richmond and at home. We’re so thankful for all of you… especially those that have been so supportive as we’ve fought through this whole process this past year.  We know we have a lot to learn but we also have A LOT to look forward to in 2013!!! Thanks Jodi and Kurt for the image!

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This morning, as I think back to that beautiful October Sunday… I get a little teared up…..well maybe not a little… a lot. You see, girls dream of this day. They dream of the dress and the bouquet and the centerpieces but I really never had a vision for all of that. The only thing I remember thinking about as a little girl was WHO I was going to marry. I thought about that a lot. My parents have modeled such an incredible marriage for me, Emy and Corey. I wanted that. I wanted someone to be my best friend. I wanted someone to love me with makeup off and sweatpants on. I wanted someone who would take care of me and fight for me. I watched my parents and I knew I wanted to marry a man that loved Christ more than anything else in this world because that would mean that he would never leave me. I wanted a man of integrity, who respected me and loved me like Daddy loves Momma.  The amazing thing is… I was given all of that and more. Not only does Michael do all of those things… he also clears my CF cards when I’m behind on wedding prep, he comes home from work to eat lunch with me whenever he can, he cleans the house when I’m shooting weddings so that I’m not stressed when I get home… he doesn’t get frustrated that I’m not an amazing cook and he loves me unconditionally… even when I’m a horrible person to be around.  It’s so easy for me to say that besides salvation, Michael is the GREATEST gift God has ever given me. I couldn’t do life without him.

Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” …..and Michael I don’t know what our future holds. I don’t know what the Lord has in store for us and our marriage but I’m pretty sure we’re going to have seasons that are hard and phases of life that are trying. We’re going to walk through so much in our life together and I’m ready. I’m ready and I’m excited because we’re doing this together.  This past year has probably been the greatest year of my life. Nothing feels more natural than sharing life with you everyday and I love it. I love being your cheerleader, your best friend and most of all, I just love being your WIFE. Thank you for the most amazing first year!!! Happy Anniversary!!!

So this past week I have been staying up until the crack of dawn almost every night. I’ve been telling Michael that I’m editing and that is partially true… but I’ve also been making the 10.10.10 wedding video that is LONG overdue. The biggest regret of our wedding was that I didn’t hire a videographer. I went all out with our photog but video, at the time, wasn’t a priority. I’m kicking myself now!!! However! I asked a dear dear family friend to use my 5D and just shoot random clips throughout the day just so that we would have something to remember it by besides our images. Katie blew me away. Instead of enjoying 10.10.10, she was running around with a shootsac and my camera trying to capture our day for us the best she could. We’re so thankful. There are clips of moments that I will literally TREASURE for a lifetime! So I took these little clips and compiled them to make a little wedding video. It’s not perfect. My editing skills aren’t anything to brag about (Josh Gooden don’t judge!!). There are a few rough transitions and bumpy clips but if I’m honest… I don’t care… not at all. I’m just so thankful to be able to relive our day over and over again! It was perfect from beginning to end and I was reminded of that as I watched these clips.  So enjoy this video and then some of my favorite images from 10.10.10!!!!

Random facts about our wedding:
– There were over 400 guests… YIKES.

– The band played the same song that was used in the video as I walked down the aisle. The bridge of the song is when the doors opened and I walked in! I was SO excited!!! It was PERFECT!

– Michael read his vows off his ipad… typical.
– We picked our date because Michael asked me out in high school on the 10th! So we were married on our 8th anniversary, EXACTLY! 101010! woopwoop!
– We saved thousands by not having alcohol at our reception. Obviously that didn’t hinder the dancing!! Crazy kids.
– Our Ceremony was held at the church where Michael and I grew up and where my dad has been the pastor for the last 21 years! Michael proposed there too!
– Our reception was in my parent’s backyard and we had to demolish our POOL in preparation for the wedding! Talk about dedication!! (It wasn’t an in-ground pool… that would have just been ridiculous!:)
– There were 93 glowing lanterns under our tent…. Party Perfect said that 20-30 was about average. It took a whole DAY for them to hang them!
– All the vintage furniture belonged to my great aunt Margie who was like a grandmother to me!

– Daddy married us, My sister was my maid of honor and my little brother was Michael’s best man…. so the WHOLE family was on the altar….poor momma had to sit by herself! I don’t think she minded:)

– Our “Signature Drink” was Peacock Lemonade…. it didn’t taste spectacular but it was TEAL!!! haha One of my many crazy ideas…. enjoy the post!

My veil is hanging on Momma and Daddy’s wedding invitation…pictures mean more when you know the details!Sweet sweet friends Michael and his best man:) My husband is HANDSOME!!!!
Loved the framing of the tree… Jas you’re good:) One of my FAVORITES! This is hanging at my parents house and it’s gorgeous! I was a little excited… Daddy married us! ….. Lots of tears.
Love this…. Caroline is so happy for us and she’s been my cheerleader since we were able to talk! Best friends are such a gift!!!

YESS!!!!!!! Hard work pays off!!!!

A special thanks to:

My amazing parents who made this dream day happen!

Jasmine and Jd! They captured memories for us to remember forever and we love them for it!!

Mosaic Catering... they rocked our world!! Seriously, they DESIGNED our food display and brought props just because they enjoy making things look gorgeous!

Party Perfect… thanks for hanging all 93 of my lanterns in perfect clusters! You are wonderful!!

Our lighting Crew from Big Top Entertainment

 Janie for my florals!! Love you!

Richard Green Entertainment for keeping the party going! … If you need a DJ… He’s the best one around… and I’ve seen A LOT of DJ’s!

K. Rose Cakes

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About a month ago, his mom called me and asked if I would help her plan a surprise “Welcome Home” party for him and of course I agreed to.  We planned and decorated and cleaned.  My job was to distract Michael from coming to the house and so I asked him to help me with something at the church.  When I arrived early to the church, his car was already there.  I quickly ran inside yelling “Heyyy Michael.. I’m here!”.  I then heard the music playing in the sanctuary.  I cracked open the door and saw nothing but candles all the way to the altar.  For those of you who don’t know me as well, you should know that this is the sanctuary we grew up in, the same aisle we walked down to be baptized, and the altar that Daddy has taught from since I was 16 months old.  I glanced up and saw Michael standing at the front of the church holding one long stemmed white lily (my absolute favorite!).  I walked up and he told me to sit down. He began washing my feet and the tears started flowing.  My tears of course.  He held it together so well. Well enough to read from 1 Corinthians 13.  We love that chapter.  As he finished reading he reached for his pocket and my heart started racing faster than before.  He looked at me and said those words that every girl has dreamed about since she was little.  He asked me to marry him!!!!!!!

He then explained that the party was his idea from the start. Both of our families knew exactly what was going on and he had met with my dad all the way back in June! (awww, i know:)  We headed to my house, now overflowing with about 90 friends and family.  Michael thanked everyone for his surprise and went on to explain that it wasn’t a surprise for him at all! He shared what had just happened and there were more tears and squeals! We spent the whole night celebrating with friends and family.  It was beautiful. Everything about it was perfect and it still doesn’t feel real.  I keep glancing at my left hand about every 4 minutes just to be sure.

Michael I love you more than anything. You’re my best friend, my FIANCE’ and soon to be my HUSBAND!!! ahh! That’s so crazy! I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, to pick out toasters with you, and grow old with you! Thank you:)

Michael also had our good friend Jessie Smith there to take pictures! PLEASE take a look at her hard work and beautiful pictures on the blog! But first, take a look at that ring!! AH!

That’s on my hand right now!! Unreal.

Please visit Jessie’s Blog for more pictures and slideshow!

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