On September 25th at 12:40 AM, Joseph Douglas Minnis entered the world and proved every cliché to be true… He is perfect in every way… Our lives have never been better… We feel complete… He is our answered prayer.
If you’ve followed for a while, you know that getting to this point was not easy. We struggled through infertility, a surprising miracle natural conception, loss of that pregnancy by miscarriage followed by grief and depression, and then just a few months later, another pregnancy. This pregnancy. Our sweet little miracle boy.
A little bit about his name because I love it so much…
We didn’t announce his name until he was born – not even to our families! And yet, the whole pregnancy I kept telling them that they would not be surprised by his name; if they thought about it for even five minutes they would figure it out. Without fail, as soon as we announced his arrival, all my siblings were blowing up our family group text saying “I guessed it!”
If you know me in real life then you know my special devotion to St. Joseph. It began back in college when someone told me about this novena. They told me that anything you ask for while praying this novena cannot be denied you. At the time, Matt and I had just connected and I prayed that we would become official. No lie, within 10 days he had asked me on our first date and the rest is history!
The novena is such a beautiful meditation on the saint. Did you realize that the Gospel does not record one spoken verse for St. Joseph? And yet, he had such an integral role in our salvation. He was specially chosen to be the spouse of Mary, a role that by default meant raising the Son of God. He risked embarrassment by remaining married to Mary even though she became pregnant and he trusted that it was divine intervention rather than infidelity even though it made no sense. Then he went on to raise Jesus as his own. St. Joseph was patient, kind, humble, hard-working, a great father and protector.
Every time I do this novena (I do it fairly often), I picture St. Joseph bringing my requests to the feet our the Lord and that Jesus as his obedient son cannot say no. Luke 2:51 is one of the only Bible verses that talks about Jesus’ childhood; “he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” So, when St. Joseph brings a worthy request to Him, He fulfills it. Can you see why I love this novena and St. Joseph so much?!
As for his middle name, it is a Minnis tradition that goes way back. Our Joe is the fourth generation with the middle name Douglas!
We feel so incredibly blessed to be his parents and get to love him every day.
This is only the beginning of what is sure to be our greatest adventure yet.
Birth announcements gifted by Basic Invite. They had so many great designs and I appreciated all of the customization options – hundreds of designs, almost unlimited colors, custom samples, address services, and quick turnaround. They would be great for holiday cards – that time is just around the corner!
Robe by Yumi Kim, more colors here | Hair tie by Lazy Day
