The Birth Story of Jaxon Christopher Boggs | Louisville Birth Photographer

I've always been told that fear and faith can't co exist. Up until 9:26 am on September 22, 2016 I accepted that as a truth and every day since then I've been uncertain.. about everything. Maybe they can't co exist but they can certainly run parallel, and they can absolutely collide. When Gracelyn was born into Heaven my faith was shaken and fear was so quick to come in and fill every exposed piece of my heart and mind. There were many moments of collision I'm not proud of, the moments that fear won and left me paralyzed or worse- beating my fists against a steering wheel in an empty parking lot screaming at God for answers only to be met with deafening silence. There were also moments that my faith increased and was strengthened, moments that even though we were terrified, we chose to believe that we would still see the goodness of God on this side of the veil. 

I've experienced more levels of 'hard' this past year than I even knew existed. Saying hello and goodbye to Gracie..that was hard. Not having answers..that was hard. Learning to trust God all over again each day...that has been hard. Many people thought being pregnant again would somehow 'fix' the broken..put the pieces back together and make everything back to the way it should have been. Restore our family and make us whole. Like some sort of victory at the end of our darkest struggle.

Truth is it didn't...there will always be a missing piece, a missing person, a million missing moments and the constant reel of 'what if's and 'should have been's and 'I wonder what's... I wonder what she would look like now, or what her laugh would sound like, I wonder who's personality she would have... she should be here. and she's not. and all of these first's that should be seconds.. those are all so hard. It's hard to try and put the pieces together when each day holds moments where they fall apart all over again.

However... this little boy, this sweet, perfect, precious, incredible little boy.... he's making the hard more bearable. At 10:37 pm on July 29th he brought color back into our world. He reminds us daily that even though devastatingly terrible things happen, dreams are destroyed, and lifetimes of hopeful plans can be shattered in an instant..... there can be crazy good again, you can dream more dreams without forgetting the past, it's ok to live through the pain and experience true happiness and wonder and awe while simultaneously reliving all of the pain like we are back at day one. I'm learning that sorrow and joy can also run parallel as tear after tear falls on his head while I struggle with the culmination of joy and sorrow in every 'should have been '.

I don't know what's in store for our future.. And I'll never stop wishing I could rewrite our past..but I'm so thankful and incredibly blessed that we had her for a moment rather than not at all and I'm so grateful that with every breath he takes I see a bittersweet glimpse of what could have been and a glaringly bright reminder that even the darkest darkness can't take away all of the light. Every day I look at each of them, one in a picture and one in my arms, and think there's no way I could love either of them anymore than I already do....and yet everyday I wake up and somehow love them more. 

I can't thank Kelly Lovan enough for the images in this video. When I asked her to photograph our birth my one condition was 'if he dies I need you to continue taking pictures'....as morbid as it sounds only a few months into my pregnancy all I could associate with it was loss. I would pay a million dollars for one more picture of Gracelyn...just one. Throughout the whole pregnancy I watched the birth videos on her page, over and over. Trying to rewire my brain to once again remember that pregnancy could end with joy. Reminding myself to have hope. Chris would ask what I was doing and my tearful reply was always the same 'watching babies be born alive'. The best thing about this video is being able to relive the moment that he was born and know that this time my cry wasn't the only one in the room.