As the wife of a professional portrait photographer who specializes in pregnancy and newborn photography, I'm obviously all for documenting each an every single step of this wondrous moment in your life. After seeing the beautiful images that immortalize this momentous occasion, even if I weren't married to a professional photographer, I would still think all women should have the opportunity to do this.
While my husband has not ventured into birth photography–taking pictures of a woman before, during and after delivery–he did take photos of me at these stages the two times I was pregnant. And there's nothing I love more that looking at these images, especially now that my kids seem to be getting older and older by the second.
Read more in ¿Qué más?: Do you really want to know EVERYTHING about your child before it's born?
I have a lot more photos of my first pregnancy than I do of my second one. The main reason is that with my first belly, I was serving as a model for my husband since we were in the process of starting our own photography studio. So I got a ton of photos of my bump, some of which I love to death because they're super artistic. Although the ones from my daughter's birth are more realistic than artistic, they're extremely special because everything happened the complete opposite way than I had planned.
In fact, the photo you see above was taken right after our daughter Vanessa was born via C-section. My husband was allowed to take his camera into the OR and it on to the anesthesiologist who snapped the very first photo of our family of three, minutes after we met our first child. I also have photos of the actual procedure, some of which I can't really look at because I'm such a wuss when it comes to stuff like that. But there's one of the doctors lifting my daughter out of my womb, which is glorious despite her surroundings. Every time I see that photo, I cry.
Although I don't have as many photos of my second pregnancy–you know what they say, the shoemaker's son always goes barefoot–I do have some amazing ones of the actual delivery. While only a handful of people have seen them, I am always in awe of the one where I'm actually looking down at my son being born.
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I'm sure many people would think the delivery room is no place for a professional photographer. And while I lucked out having one as a husband, I tell everyone I know that there's no more precious gift than the treasured images I have of both my children's births.
Would you consider hiring a professional photographer to capture the birth of your child? Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment.
Image via JAG Photography
