We took a maternity photoshoot this week.
This is the part where you a) roll your eyes or b) get mildly excited at the prospect of this ruse. I will admit I considered these events a bit odd as I entered adulthood. By the time I was on the precipice of having my first kid, I realized this was a choice I didn’t have to begin with. In full honesty, they’re definitely awkward to be part of, but there is a piece of sentimentality you can always reminisce on years later. Less so because of the beautiful sunset or glowing parents-to-be, but more for the inevitable funny stories that come with these memories. Like, remember the time we drove out to that random field on the side of the highway to take photos and I stepped in a fire ant hill and I itched until I bled for three weeks? And, oh yeah, you were stunning that day. And throughout your pregnancy, of course.
I’ve realized that there are a few mandates and requirements that come with life. Like jury duty and taxes, you just have to suck it up and get it done. A lot like staged photoshoots. Prom, graduation, graduation, engagement (if you plan it right, I guess), wedding, somebody’s wedding, somebody else’s wedding, gender reveals (these are just out of hand), newborn, repeat and so on. We just don’t have a choice. We get fancy, we continue tradition, we color coordinate with every member of our family including the dog? So when your significant other schedules your photographer and tells you to get dressed like a doll, you damn well do it.
Three times.
We did go to that random field for my first daughter. We were newbies, naive to this parenting game. And I did indeed step in a number of things, cowpies included, which mattered because my wife made me wear “dress shoes”—which is ridiculous because, as previously noted, I’m obsessed with sneakers and also look completely ridiculous in semi-formal attire. I got to wear wolf gray low Jordan 1s on my wedding day, and I’m fairly sure that was the last time I was able choose anything in regards to fashion. I also had a dress shirt on in the middle of a dusty Florida field in 90-degree heat, like some kind of country star music video. I had to hold my wife’s belly in a lot of unnatural ways. We had to hold longing glances at each other while walking along a cliche farm fence. But admittedly, I spent most of my time holding my spouse’s belongings while watching out of frame.
The next was more fun. My first daughter Saoirse was with us, and she was in that “cute and harmless” phase. She thought the concept was incredible and smiled without issue for a solid seven minutes. Then you get the 1,328 photos in which you have to choose six. That takes about a half-day. The whole process from the corny poses to the picture on the wall is quite a process.
For the third (last?) time a few days ago, we went to a local garden only about five minutes away. (Because any longer with a four and five-year-old in the car, mass hysteria ensues.) My girls were far more obsessed running around the pathways and annoyingly picking all the flowers. We bribed them with everything we could, from iPad time to bathtubs full of ice cream. Just hold still. Take that out of your mouth. Please show your face. It was an hour of herding cats, fake smiling and belly holding (with just more hands).
As we scarfed down Chick-fil-A (one of the many bribes fulfilled that evening), we looked back at family photos when mommy was pregnant and the girls were babies. It really is incredible how your camera roll becomes an endless zoom of your kids doing very mundane things and your kids taking selfies after stealing your phone. But the ones that do come out amazingly well are from those darn photoshoots. It’s a reminder of those milestone moments along the way, from being kids ourselves to actually building a family.
Could you have ever pictured that?