Apple Hill: The Prequel

Hollywood loves prequels. Roscoe's story has been a tearjerker full of plot twists, a charismatic hero, and comedic relief, so it is only fitting that his story end with a "prequel" view of what happened before the blog began. Alisha was rushed into the hospital after our ultrasound checkup on September 17th, 2013 and I consequently began this blog a few days later. However, something special occurred a few days prior on September 14th and it hasn't been fully revealed until now.

Alisha is a photographer (www.alishahurt.com) who specializes in pictures of children and families. However, on September 14th she took her own maternity pictures at Apple Hill. Alisha has impressed me in many ways, but you won't find many women who take their own maternity pictures outside of a bathroom mirror. Since it was nearing fall weather and we were unsure when she'd be checked into the hospital, we drove up to Apple Hill early in the morning to catch the sunrise.

We had a few props with us, gathered some fallen apples, and picked out locations where we'd take her pictures. To get the camera settings correct for the lighting conditions, Alisha would have me stand in the spot where she planned to be so she'd have something to focus on. Of course I had to make myself an accurate of a representation of a pregnant woman:

Then she would switch spots with me and I'd snap the picture using the settings, position, and zoom distance that she'd decided upon:

The rest of her maternity pictures can be seen below. Her belly wasn't as big as most (she was 25.5 weeks at the time) but this was the best we could get of a skinny girl with a tiny baby. She was admitted to the hospital just 3 days later:

This day was the genesis of Roscoe's story. The tiny baby in her belly (at the time he was only 13.8oz) would go on to be born, grow, and live a triumphant life seen by people around the world before returning to God.

Tomorrow I will post my last blog entry, which will be a summarization of all that's happened for anyone who stumbles across this blog in the future. I will miss writing these blog posts, because I felt like I got to experience such a special situation from a perspective that no one else had, like a reporter who is trapped inside a bank while a robbery takes place.

I told Alisha last night that the journey of writing this story as it unfolded has been something that I enjoyed thoroughly and that I can never experience in the same way again. Even if we had a second baby with the exact same problems, it would not be the same. Roscoe was the right baby, given to the right parents, at the right time. We love him dearly (and always will) and I feel honored that God chose us to tell his story.