As I scurry to put the most important memories of M on this new blog, so that I don’t forget too many things, I find myself walking down memory lane.  The birth photos I posted just a bit ago had not been looked at, in their entirety, in months.  It was so fun to go back and look at them all again.  So many memories are packed into those 305 photos, it’s amazing.  I actually don’t remember too much about M’s birth because I had a scheduled C-section (breech baby) and as the drugs wore off, my memory apparently started to fade as well.  I remember everything up until being wheeled out of the delivery room – and that was when it all went blank (or rather – very, very foggy).  I honestly couldn’t remember holding M for the first time.  I knew I’d done it, but I couldn’t remember anything about it.  His birth photos brought it all back for me, and I am so grateful for them.  I am grateful for our photographer, Denise, who told me stories about each photo so that I could remember even more of the most important day of my life.

Photographs are very important to me.  Obviously, right?  I hired a photographer to attend my birth for 9 hours!  Denise and her girls have become like family to us, and we see her weekly.  A week without seeing Denise is a very sad week for me.  We are two peas in a pod – and M LOVES her.  He talks to her in a way that he does not talk to anyone else.  I truly think he knows that she was there when he was born – I think the sound of her voice is burned into his memory from that very first day.

Denise is a phenomenal photographer.  I have nothing but wonderful things to say about her and her business partner, Lindy.  They, in my opinion, are the premier baby/child/family photographers in the Central Iowa region – and you would likely agree with me if you checked out their site.  I am so lucky to have found her!  She puts us all at ease and can get photos of M that are priceless (well – they do have a price – but I’m willing to pay it!).  Denise and Lindy have their own blog and they document many of their sessions there.  M has been the topic of many a White Linen blog!  I am so grateful for this because it allows me to share M’s photos with everyone without having to post them to FB or attach them to emails, etc.

Here are M’s newborn photos.  These were taken when he was just a week old.  Breathless!  I just love them!

We had 4 month photos takes, and a few of them are actually on White Linen’s home page.  M won a contest to be on their home page – makes me very proud  😉

We had 6-7 month photos taken a while back right after Christmas, and they’re the ones up on Denise’s blog right now.  The session in her studio (teal background) could not have gone better!  I learned that the trick to wonderful, smiley baby photos is to keep your baby up until they’re over-tired and WILD.  It made for a very rough afternoon, but the photos are the best we’ve ever gotten of M!  When Denise came to the house a couple of weeks later to take the photos of M on the bed (we use that bed as our “ages and stages” prop – meaning we take his picture there at each milestone to show his growth), she pulled out her camera and took photos of him and me playing and just enjoying each other in the house.  The candid photos are by far my favorites!  I can’t stop looking at them!

Denise has offered to take “lifestyle photos” of M, B, and me.  I have always wanted a photographer to just follow me around and take photos of my favorite moments (hence the birth photos), and that’s exactly what she’ll be doing!  She wants to capture M’s bedtime routine so we’re starting with dinner (there will be split pea soup or the quinoa to capture his “I hate this food” look!) and then going into bath time, book time, and bedtime.  I CANNOT WAIT!

Denise has also offered to do the same thing for when we do our next round of IVF for M’s potential sibling, and if our RE says OK, we’ll be taking her up on this (she is such a great friend to us!).  I think it’s really important to capture the process, the tears, the joys, the heartache, the EVERYTHING that has to do with the IF struggle.  As much as I hated our IF process, I would not trade it for the world because it brought M to us (not to mention that it taught me so many things).  We are infertile – it’s part of who we are as a family – so why not document it in pictures?  Most people’s pregnancy journeys start with good old-fashioned s-e-x and a positively pink pee stick.  Yay for them (truly!)!  They may take a photo of said pee stick and then move onto fun stuff like ultrasound photos and belly measurements.  We started with blood draws, and tests, and drugs, and needles, and unpleasant ultrasounds, etc.  I want it all captured next time, even if we fail.

I’ll leave you with our family photos, which I have permission to post.  They are sprinkled with a couple of shots here at the house, as well as two in his Halloween costume.  The family photos were taken on a rather cold day in November, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at them.  As I write this entry, I am surrounded by these photos in my living room.  They make me so very happy and warm  🙂