My husband hates being in front of the camera so needless to say, he was not too keen on the idea of doing a maternity photoshoot. While I outwardly knocked him for this, I’ll admit a few years back I didn’t see the reason behind them either. Why would women want to pay top dollar to show off a big, bulging baby bump? But, the more aware I became of the transformation a woman’s body undertakes to create new life and I witnessed those close to me becoming mothers, the more I began to appreciate these maternal works of art.
Pregnancy can be a joyous yet turbulent time in a parent-to-be’s life. Those nine+ months bring on a plethora of emotions, from pure happiness to the rawest feelings of vulnerability. The life of an unborn child is in the parents’ hands, but only to a certain extent. For those like myself that like to plan and maintain control, the reality of this can be hard to accept.
We had a scare early on in our pregnancy that taught us as much as we try to do things right, the development of this little life inside is ultimately not up to us. The words of our pastor, reminding us that worry cannot change anything but hope, prayer and positivity can, became our mantra during that uncertain period and throughout the entire pregnancy. We quickly learned to embrace any challenge that came our way, knowing that nothing would change the love we had for this baby. Experiencing our first pregnancy during a pandemic has been just another chapter in this lesson book of accepting things as they come. Good practice for when our daughter becomes a teenager, I suppose.
Fortunately and through the grace of God (hence Madison's middle name "Grace"), our baby was able to resolve the earlier seen issues all on her own and has been growing strong and healthy ever since. But those few weeks of waiting, wondering and worrying (even when we tried not to) opened up our eyes to the uncertainties that pregnancy can bring and we became more aware of the struggles that other expectant parents may go through.
These 40-weeks are only the beginning of a life changing journey and what better way to capture the stage than with photographs you can look back on through each one that follows. Of course the images are staged, but the emotions behind them are as real as it gets. In some of these moments with eyes closed, I thought about the progress our little one has made and how grateful I am to be standing here with her, less than nine weeks before she’s in our arms. I thought about how much I love and appreciate her father and how I can’t wait to watch their bond form.
I smiled because I felt beautiful – big, bulging belly and all. Because in those moments I thought of the beautiful transformation that a mother’s body – my body – undergoes, with all the changes, aches, and pains – all for the purpose of creating a safe and nurturing environment for the growing life inside.
Here’s a collection of some of the images shot by my talented sister-in-law. I can’t wait until our daughter is older and can see through these images all the love we've had for her since the very beginning and the excitement we had in knowing we would get to meet her soon.
(Not pictured: our "holy crap we are about to be parents and somehow have to figure out how to keep a child alive" faces. But we make those daily so no photographs needed :))
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