Daniela and Mustafa went next, after the clean up crew took care of clearing the floor of pink confetti (don’t ask me how they’re going to get that stuff out of Daniela’s chandelier)!
They had opted for confetti-filled balloons. The first one exploded with... blue confetti!
They were so happy to be having a boy!
The next balloon was popped to reveal....pink confetti!
They're getting one of each! How much more perfect can you get?

I’m so excited for these sisters and their families. Here are some more photos from the day!

I’m very excited to announce that my sister is having a baby! We are all so happy that we’re going to be welcoming a new member to the family. We are made even happier because it was a very very hard road getting to this point.

​Lisa and her husband Will started trying for a family in November of 2015. The first time Lisa told me she was pregnant was in October of 2016. I was overjoyed. Unfortunately, in December we got the heartbreaking news that Lisa had suffered a miscarriage. It hit our family hard. It was painful to see my sister going through something so unimaginably devastating.

In May of 2017, we found out Lisa was pregnant again, only to get the crushing news in June that she had had a second miscarriage. Compounding Lisa's sorrow was the fact that several close friends and family members gave birth around the time of both miscarriages, the fact that I'm a newborn photographer, and the fact that Lisa works at an OB-Gyn office. Every day, more salt was poured in her wounds. She was very close to giving up on having a family, but Will convinced her not to give up hope, and I'm so happy he did.

Her doctors began doing exhaustive testing and found that she has two different blood clotting disorders that caused her miscarriages. She now has to take aspirin every day for the rest of her life, and has to inject herself in the stomach with medication every day for the rest of her pregnancy.

Lisa became pregnant in November of 2017, and was understandably a wreck for the first many weeks. She didn't even tell our parents that she was pregnant until she was 15 weeks. She's at 18 weeks now and is still very hesitant to share her news because of how she was burned twice before. Every impending appointment fills her with dread, only to be relieved right after that the baby is perfectly healthy. The worry will probably never go away, but she is making a valiant effort to be positive and to share her news with the world.

Yesterday, I went to her doctor's appointment with her and saw the baby move on the sonogram for the first time. It was an incredible experience. A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after parents suffer a miscarriage or still birth, because a rainbow comes after a storm. I cannot wait to meet this rainbow baby and document its entire life.
We started the process with a photo shoot with my dog nephew Ash, and a few photos to commemorate the struggle that Lisa has been through.

I got Lisa's permission to share her story. She and I both think that miscarriage is a thing that should be talked about more. Most women are silent about their struggles with miscarriage and infertility, making it an isolating and even more painful experience. If you know someone who is dealing with this horrible situation, please try to be there for them in any way you can. It's so easy to celebrate someone's joys with them, but it's so much harder to comfort them in their sorrows. Let them know you're thinking of them and ask them how they are. Even if they don't want to talk, they'll know that you care, and that can make a world of difference. If you yourself are going through it, please know that you aren't alone, and try not to give up hope for a rainbow baby of your own. 

This is part 1 of Diana and Mike's maternity photos! We went to two outdoor locations this day, but didn't get everything done that we had planned, so Diana and I got together a few days later to do some more photos in studio.
That session will be posted at a  later date, so stay tuned for those!

We started out our photo shoot at Heckscher State Park in East Islip, which overlooks the Great South Bay. This was my first time shooting a session there and I'd love to go back. There were a lot of different beautiful areas that made great backdrops for photography. It was a little windy near the water for some of the props we wanted to incorporate, so we then traveled to the Stony Brook duck pond, the site of the vicious swan attack I survived last winter (read about that here)! Thankfully, there were no repeat waterfowl offenses this time.  Diana was a trooper climbing up the big stone steps to the labyrinth there. In fact, she volunteered! 
Here are some of my favorite photos from this day!