Birth Photography

First, thank you so much to all of the kind comments, emails and messages about birth classes - they really made me feel like I was not just a crazy pregnant lady going all hormonal on this situation. And the offers to come with! Thanks friends.

Hopefully we will be looking at a smaller percentage of missed classes from A, as he sent out a plea for help on the ship to see if he could trade watch days with someone. That would mean he would only miss two of the classes, which is much, much better.

So, to combat all of that craziness, today's post is about something that I am super pumped to experience...

Birth Photography.

I may have wavered about maternity photos, but I never wavered about birth photography. Now, before you get all shudder-y and grossed out (as I once was too, I promise you), Let me make my case.

I am not talking about all of the close up crowning "Miracle of Life" type photos you may have seen in health class in 7th grade. Birth photography can be that too, for those who are interested, but it can also be a very visual way to tell a story. That story being the day your child is born.

Some of my favorite images from around the interwebs as proof:

I love the blog this momma writes...and her birth story is beautiful.

The photos tell the most beautiful story of the day.

All those photos taken by the lovely Marla from this duo.

This one just gets to me. Mayhap it's the uniform.

from here

So sweet!

from here

This video is a slideshow of beautiful photos from the birth story told here:

The Homebirth of Lucia Mae from Sara Janssen on Vimeo.

The photos of the grandma and big sister around the 5 minute mark slay me.

If you ever happened to follow Weddingbee the way I did, Mrs. Avacado aka, That Wife has a great slideshow here too.

Now, how could those images be anything other than cherished? I am sure the families have some more "private" shots that they wouldn't want for the world to see on the internet, but the point is - they have them. Trust that I am not trying to have all these photos on Facebook, or even on this blog for the world to see. A selected few? Sure. The point of this is that I want these photos for myself. 

Different hospitals vary vastly on being able to photograph or even videotape births, mainly due to malpractice suits, though I can totally see how the care of the mom and baby is the.most.important.thing, so they don't want extra bodies in the way that don't need to be there. 

There is an interesting article you can check out here on the differing trends in policies. Probably goes to show why most birth photos on the web are from home births rather than hospital ones. 

Our hospital policy actually states that we can't have third-party photographers in the room, or any video of any kind. Since I will be preoccupied, you know, having a baby, and A is not the best photog in the world...we are having a family member take some photos.

Remember how I said my sister-in-law was trained as a photographer? Well, she is not technically a professional photographer (aka third party), so we have asked her if she would be comfortable doing it. And she said yes! 

Yay loop holes! (Trust that we will verify that it isn't a problem for an additional family member in the room to have her camera out, and if it is, well then, A is going to get really.good at photos between now and then.)

I don't really know how I would feel about a photographer that I had hired and didn't really know being all up in the business anyway, so this works out quite well for us. Plus, I trust that my sister-in-law will work diligently to have flattering angles of me, bonus!, and that she will be able to be quiet or engage in conversation and just be supportive in general of the birthing process and how I am feeling. She's pretty great like that. 

A and I talked about it, and we both thought it was great that we had photos and video of moments that we had forgotten about our wedding day - little things, mind you - so why would the birth of our child(ren) be any different? 

27 weeks, 6 days along

...and this is the last day of the second trimester.