This past weekend was one for the books!
I had the honor of going to school with Sierra years ago and she was pregnant at the time with her second child, Tucker! As the school year went on, her belly got bigger and soon enough she couldn’t fit at the desks and we would all laugh about it! Sierra had the BEST sense of humor and a personality that beamed the second she walked into the room. She could turn a frown upside down for sure!
I posted a model call a couple weeks ago looking for a willing couple that was ready to show off some PDA! When Sierra reached out to me about wanting to participate, I couldn’t have been happier! Immediately we set up the session and the magic began!!
Shortly after our session, I couldn’t help but to ask Sierra to share her and Tory’s story on how they met and how they got to where they are now. She obliged, and wrote perhaps the most beautiful story I’ve ever read. It’s my honor to share their love story :
“Back in the fall of 2007, i was newly 16 and working my very first job at Sicily’s Italian Buffet as a cashier when Tory walked in smiling and asking for an application. My heart sank. Being that I had just started, I fumbled when trying to locate the applications and had to ask for help. When I handed it over, he smiled and said “you’re new”? I kind of laughed and said yes. At that time I thought that I had just handed over a simple job application. When now i realize i was handing the young boy in front of me our life application. He started working not long after that. We had small conversations here and there while at work, trying not to get into too much trouble. When finally i decided i was going to ask him for his number. It was after closing time and he was cleaning the oven one night and I walked up to him and said “hey I..” and he interrupted me saying “be careful, this is bleach, I don’t want it to stain your clothes”. This was the very beginning of his thoughtfulness. Our uniforms were all black, those stains would have been horrible! I smiled and continued to tell him i needed to tell him something and he gave me his number. Still not really knowing what I was going to say, that night i texted him and we talked for a bit. I remember when he told me goodnight he sent it with the kissing heart emoji. From that point forward, we were inseparable. On November 17, 2007, while sitting in his car he looked at me and said “baby, be mine”. I would have been foolish to say no and was happy to say yes! Tory graduated high school in 2008. Shortly after he moved in with my family and I. (We slept in separate rooms). I started my senior year getting to see him every single day. We cooked together did chores together. Everything. We were 17 and 18 years old, living like we were married. I graduated in 2009. At the end of that summer. Tory got a house. I remained at home and it was hard being that we had lived together already. But, i was starting college and my house was closer to school than his. Financially, it made the most sense. He spent more time at my house than his own anyway. In October while washing dishes together one night, i told him quietly that I was late. He knew immediately what i meant. He made an excuse to leave the house real quick and came back shortly after. You know they say when you know, you know? Well I knew and I was right. We sat for what felt like hours and cried. What were we going to do? We were now 18 and 19 and expecting our first baby. The next few months were rough as our families were disappointed, rightfully so. We both realized they were scared for us. But none the less we made it through. We got our very first home together a week before our daughter, Malory Elizabeth Joubert made her way into this great big world on July 2, 2010. She was the absolute light of our lives. When she was three months old she was diagnosed with sleep-apnea and had to be hooked up to a monitor unless she was being bathed. She had to go three full months without having any episodes before she could be removed from the monitors. I withdrew from school to be with her 24/7. In January of 2011, I enrolled in Remington College. I thought to myself of how I needed an education. I needed to show Malory that just because her daddy and I had her young didn’t meant that I didn’t follow through with school and that her daddy didn’t support me. Two weeks before I started school when Malory was only 7 months old, we found out we were expecting our second baby. Again, what were we going to do? I followed through with school and finished 2 weeks before our beautiful son, Tucker Michael Joubert, was born on September 27, 2011. I started working not long after he was born. The next two years flew by like i never imagined they would. March 13, 2013, Tory proposed to me. It was everything i had ever hoped for! We were finally all going to be Joubert’s! Then realizations set in. Tory and I were no longer the same people we were when we met back in 2007 at 16 and 17 years old. We had been raising our babies, maintained jobs, moving to different homes, and neglecting our selves and our relationship while doing so. No one tells you how to do it all, you see.. You do the best you can and hopefully learn while doing so. We were now 23 and 24 with a two year old and a one year old. Life was hard and things changed. 2014-2015 were the hardest years of our lives. We thought we could never come back from them. 2016 came like the light at the end of the tunnel and everything changed and our eyes were opened to a whole new world. In March, we found out that we were expecting our third baby and were so excited! Only to have found out shortly after that we had lost our baby. We were devastated. Malory and Tucker were too little so we kept this to ourselves. Over the next month, both of them began talking about a new baby. Never before had they ever asked and it was so odd that now they were both after us about it. Malory had asked me for a new baby while i was washing dishes with my back to her and she was sitting at the table.. Through silent tears, i told her that it is not up to me and that it was up to god to send us a new baby. She was quiet and the next thing i knew she was praying to god out loud to please bring her Mamma a baby for them. On May 22 2016, it was the day of Malory’s father daughter dance recital. That morning, Tory, Malory and i were sitting and waiting for rehearsal to begin when i bent over to get my coffee off of the ground and felt a pain in my left side. Thought it was strange but shook it off. On our way home from rehearsal, Malory asked me again for a baby. Tory looked at me and the tears came. Again, I told her that it wasn’t up to me and that it was up to god to send us a baby. She prayed to him aloud again asking him to please send her family a new baby. Later that same night. I realized that i was late. I had Tory pick up a few tests. I had talked myself out of thinking anything of it because we had had a miscarriage not long ago so surely this couldn’t be. But it was. We were having a baby. I was terrified. We were so afraid it would happen again. I held my breath until i heard her heartbeat and i knew before they told us that she was a girl because so far, this pregnancy mimicked everything for our first daughter. On January 27, 2017, our second daughter Charlotte Emmy Kate Joubert, was born and all was right in the world! When Charlotte was six months old in July of 2017, we had a surprise! We were expecting again! Sadly, things did not go as we expected. On September 22, 2017, we lost our second angel baby at 12 weeks. Malory and Tucker knew this time, it was hard to hide.. Telling them that they were not going to have another sibling after seeing them so excited to hear the news was by far the hardest thing we have ever had to do. This was one more thing added to our application of life as a family. Love and loss together. On November 17, 2017, on our ten year anniversary, Tory and I got married! We had a small ceremony with less than 10 people present and had a small reception at my sisters house where all of our friends and family celebrated our love together. It was everything I had ever dreamed of. Simple just like us. While we have lived a less than simple life, it is the life we lead for our children, a life of simplicity. Tory and I are now 29 and 27. Malory is 8, Tucker is 7, and Charlotte is 2. We have 11 years between us all. We have grown with our children and choose to keep growing together. We are now living the life we once prayed for. ”
