I always try to get in front of the camera at least once a year to remember how my clients feel.  Even though this is a common practice for me, I could never fully understand how my pregnant clients felt until now.

First of all, trying to find an outfit that you feel confident in and hides your insecurities is challenging enough when you’re not pregnant.  Add a growing belly and uncontrollable hormones and you’ve got another set of challenges.

I searched for weeks for my unicorn dress – the perfect dress that made me feel beautiful and not cringe when I saw myself in it.  I finally found two dresses I loved on a website I had never heard of, ordered the dresses, then realized two weeks later that they still had not shipped.  There was no way they would be here in time for our maternity session.  Thankfully, I found one of the exact dresses on Amazon and it arrived two days later.

Then there is the stress of getting ready for the maternity session.  It takes longer to get ready when you’re pregnant.  Especially in your third trimester when breathing is more difficult.  You decide at the last minute that you want a braid in your hair because you had a braid for your wedding and it would be special to have one for your maternity session.  You redo said braid four times so it doesn’t look like a monkey did your hair.

Starting the session wasn’t much of a struggle for me because we have done so many before.  The challenging part was remembering that I’m supposed to show off my belly instead of hide it.  Until now, I had always posed myself in a way that made my body look smaller.  Aly had to constantly remind me not to lean forward like I usually do.  This is one of the many reasons it’s great to have a professional take photos of you!  They can see what posing is best for you and direct you into the most flattering positions.  Thank you, Aly, for making us look good!

The final challenge was the heat.  When you’re pregnant, you are basically an oven that is constantly burning.  Weston always tells me that I feel like a furnace when I cuddle up to him (haha, sorry, babe!).  When you’re third-trimester-pregnant in the hot summer where you can cut through the humidity with a knife, it’s a new kind of torture you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

It may sound like I was completely miserable during our session, but it was so much fun that I forgot about most of this until I took time to reflect on it for this blog post.  I’m thankful for Aly doing such an amazing job on our photos.  I’m excited that we captured this season of our lives.  Even more than that, I’m thankful that our little girl will see these photos one day.  She’ll see how much her parents loved each other.  She’ll see how much we loved her before we even met her.  And she’ll see how important it was to us to document these moments.

Our little girl is most active when Weston is touching my belly.  It’s like she knows it’s him.  One of my favorite moments from our session was when Aly told Weston to put his hands on my belly.  Baby girl must have known it was Weston because she immediately gave us a good kick.  I cannot wait to see the bond they have as she grows older!

It wouldn’t be a typical anniversary session if we didn’t do something weird in at least one photo haha 😉