Before They Were in Your Arms, They Were Already Part of Your Story
We tend to think of a baby's story as beginning the day they are born.
The hospital bracelet. The first photograph. The tiny fingers wrapped around yours. The newborn photographs. The first year.
But after raising three children, I don't think that's where the story begins at all.
It begins before you ever meet face to face.
It begins with the moment you find out there is a baby growing inside you. With wondering who they will become. With siblings talking to your belly. With a husband placing his hand where he hopes to feel a kick.
And with a family waiting to become something new.
That's why I've come to see maternity portraits as something much bigger than photographs of a pregnant woman.
They're the first family photographs of a child who is already very much a part of the family.
Children love knowing who they were before they can remember
When my youngest daughter, Mila, was little, I would often send her to choose a book before nap or bedtime.
She had plenty of books to choose from.
But very often, she would come back with her own.
It was an album that told the story of my pregnancy with her and continued into her newborn photographs.
She loved the photographs of me pregnant.
She would point to my belly and ask:
How big do you think I was there?
And then we'd talk.
I'd tell her about being pregnant with her. About finding out she was coming. About her birth.
I'd even tell her about the time before I was pregnant, when I knew I needed her in this world.
The photographs gave us a way into those stories.
I think children are fascinated by the idea that a whole world existed before they can remember it. There's something almost magical about seeing a photograph of your mother, young and pregnant, and realizing:
I was there.
That's me inside her belly.
I was already part of this family.
Maternity portraits aren't only about Mom
I absolutely want to photograph the woman at the center of this experience.
Pregnancy asks an extraordinary amount of a woman's body, and I think there is something incredibly important about honoring her during it.
But when there are other children involved, I want them there too.
Because while you're becoming a mother again, they're becoming something too.
A big sister.
A big brother.
They're trying to understand this baby they've never met who somehow already has a name, a room, tiny clothes and an enormous place in everyone's conversations.
Those relationships are already beginning.
I love photographing a little hand resting on Mom's belly. A child curled against her body. The curiosity. The excitement. Sometimes the uncertainty.
I want photographs of your partner, too.
He isn't experiencing pregnancy in his own body, but he's watching the woman he loves go through something remarkable. He's waiting for this baby alongside you.
So while the maternity session begins by honoring Mom, the story we're telling belongs to the entire family.
Every baby changes the family
When I was pregnant with my third child, I considered skipping the baby shower.
We already had everything.
Our friends had mostly moved beyond the baby stage. A third shower, or “sprinkle,” felt a little unnecessary.
A friend immediately disagreed with me.
Every child deserves to be celebrated.
She threw the sweetest little celebration for that baby.
I've never forgotten what she said.
Because she was right.
There can be a tendency to document everything with the first baby and then become a little less intentional as the family grows.
But your second child changes your family.
Your third changes it again.
Every baby creates a version of your family that has never existed before.
That deserves to be remembered.
I understand this differently now that my children are older
When you're standing at the beginning of motherhood, people constantly tell you how quickly it goes.
It's almost impossible to understand what they mean.
Then one day you find yourself nearly two decades into motherhood.
The babies who once reached their arms up for you are teenagers and young adults. You're talking about college and watching them build lives increasingly separate from yours.
And suddenly, the photographs mean something different.
I want all of it now.
I want the photograph of my son at three years old running down the beach.
I want the five of us piled onto a couch laughing together.
I want the photographs a dear photographer friend made of us running along the water as my children got older.
I want the maternity photographs.
The newborn photographs.
The ordinary photographs.
The milestones.
I don't believe you can have too much of your family's story.
There are very few things we own that become more valuable to us as they age.
Photographs do.
Print the beginning, too
This is also why I believe so deeply in doing something with your photographs. I don't want your maternity images to disappear into a gallery on your phone. Imagine your child finding an album years from now and seeing you before she had ever seen your face. Imagine being able to sit beside her and say:
That's you.
And then telling her the story.
How you found out.
How you felt.
What her brother thought about becoming a big brother.
How her dad would put his hand on your belly.
How much you wondered about the little person you hadn't met yet.
Maybe it becomes a bedtime story the way Mila's album became one of ours.
Because ultimately, maternity photographs aren't simply evidence of what your body looked like while you were pregnant.
They're evidence that this child had a place in your family before they ever arrived.
They were anticipated. They were imagined. They were celebrated. They were loved.
And one day, you get to show them.
ABOUT REESE & CO PORTRAITS
Reese & Co Portraits is a Denver portrait studio specializing in maternity, newborn, milestone and family photography. Photographer Laura Esmond has been photographing families for more than 25 years, creating thoughtful, artful portraits designed to live beyond the screen.
EXPLORE MATERNITY | EXPLORE NEWBORN | EXPLORE FAMILY | EXPLORE MILESTONES