My husband leaned over the hospital bassinet that cradled our newborn son, who was sleeping soundly and swaddled tightly in one of the hospital’s receiving blankets. My husband gazed at our son for a moment, and with raw, pure emotion, he blurted out, “I just love him so much.” My husband delivered the message in a way that I had never heard my husband speak before. He was completely in love and consumed by this little creature that we brought into the world. He then turned to me and hugged me. This happened just hours after our son’s birth. I don’t have a picture of that precise moment, but I remember it so clearly every time I look at our hospital pictures. The pictures always bring tears of happiness to my eyes.
This memory, and many others, prompted me to think about the connection between our photos and our stories — the building blocks of our identities. I became a first-time mom about a year and a half ago, and becoming a parent was a huge identity shift for me. When I look back at the photos from my son’s first year, each one is a reminder of a story that builds on another story that builds on another story. Not every one of those stories is happy or sweet. Some evoke heartache and intense anxiety. But I am grateful to have the reminders of all of these emotions. They make me whole. I want to hold on to the happy and the heartache, because the stories that are filled with chaos and the stories that are filled with joy shaped who I am as a mom and as a person. They helped me appreciate every moment, good or bad.
When I became a mom, the old adage, “the days are long, but the years are short,” never rang truer. I would blink, and it felt like I had a whole new baby, doing whole new baby things. With the moments flying by, I didn’t want to miss a thing. I felt compelled to document all of it. To accomplish this, I took a lot of pictures over the past year, more than 5,000 in fact. This compulsion to take photos came naturally to me. I have always liked photography, but I am not a professional. Clearly that didn’t stop me from taking pictures of my son. And over the past year, I picked up some tips and tricks to take decent photos. Sometimes I would set up photo shoots with my son, and sometimes I would pick up the camera only to get a blurry, candid shot. But either way, high-resolution or not, I cherish all of the photos for the memories and stories they hold. That’s where the idea for The Shutterbug Mom emerged.
Photos hold our stories and identities. I felt this profoundly when my son was born. I started by taking a lot of pictures in the hospital, but because of the busyness of having a newborn, my husband and I took only a few photos after that for the first couple of months of our son’s life. Thankfully, we scheduled a newborn session with We, The Light Photography, owned by Larissa Welch, a Boulder-area photographer.
Larissa came to our home about two weeks after our son was born. Looking back at those newborn photos, I see how little he was and how new my husband and I were to parenting. We had no clue what the next year would look like. The professional photos are beautiful. Very light and airy. There is a sense of peace and quiet to them. We are smiling and look like we are in a state of calm. I love looking at them and am filled with nostalgia over my tiny baby (who is now a funny, sweet toddler). But behind the calm, I also remember the chaos, the struggle. The struggle of that new identity creeping in, becoming a new mom. A new spouse. A new person, really. The day of the photo shoot, my son slept the entire two-hour session. Larissa dubbed him the “best baby ever” because of it. But I remember being filled with anxiety the entire time. I was anxious, because just the day before, he cried inconsolably while spitting up and pooping everywhere. I also remember him puking on me. And simultaneously, I had to go to the bathroom as well as change my clothes … because of the vomit. So there I was walking through our upstairs hallway with my pants around my ankles, trying to change and trying to figure out how I was going to pee, all while cradling a screaming baby in my arms.
That day I questioned everything. My ability to deal with the puke, the crying, the mothering, and the going-to-the-bathroom-when-I-needed-to-go. I remember all of those feelings when I look at those beautiful newborn shots. Even though the day of the shoot could not have been more perfect, I still remember the fear along with the love.
Embracing the mom identity was hard, especially those first few weeks. But I am so grateful to have our newborn shoot. Those pictures not only captured our beautiful new son but, for me, also captured the messy feeling of motherhood. And even though others would never see the “anxiety” looking at the pictures, I can see it and I love it. The photos also remind me of how far my husband and I have come. They illustrate the gratitude we have for being blessed with such a fun, healthy son in our lives. They illustrate the growth my husband and I continue to endure. More importantly though, they capture our son’s first few weeks on earth. His start in figuring out how to be human. The beginning of his story preserved.
Photos tell a story. They capture moments that we can’t get back. They hold memories that could be easily forgotten. In those first few weeks of our son’s life, I remember our neighbors, who have school-aged children, told us that they took a photo everyday the first year of their children’s lives, because infants grow so quickly and change so much. Another friend encouraged us to not only take photos but to capture videos, because the little coos, cries, and sweet “hiccuppy” sounds don’t last forever. And it’s true. The moments, which in the moment seem like they will last forever, pass so quickly, and the coos are replaced with the sweet voice of a toddler. This advice — to capture moments and to take pictures — isn’t always the first advice that comes around when becoming parents, but it does come around. I remember feeling like every moment was critical to remember, and I think that feeling leads back to the fact that these moments add to our story.
Photos tell a story. They capture moments that we can’t get back. They hold memories that could easily be forgotten.
Becoming a mother was the most pivotal moment of my life. As I have mentioned, I felt this profoundly from the start. I took lots of photos in the hospital, wanting to hold onto every second. I took pictures of the hospital room number, where it all started; my husband sleeping in the corner of the recovery room, tucked under a pink blanket; and the hospital bed in complete disarray, mainly because I am a slob. And from those photos, I remember the moment of being wheeled through the hospital halls, holding my son, while the tune of “Rock-A-Bye-Baby” played over the intercom. I remember being super hungry after labor. I remember where I learned the challenges of breastfeeding. These photos remind me of that time. They help me remember the sheer joy and fear of leaving the hospital with a baby, but also the moment my husband completely immersed himself into fatherhood, swaddling like a champ and changing all of the diapers. They remind me of becoming a mom. The messy, take-the-good-with-the-bad, sort of mom. And I’m so thankful for it.
