The Importance of Documenting Birth Stories
by Heather Whitten, Full Spectrum Doula and Birth Photographer
There are big days in our lives. A wedding may be one of them. The birth of a child could definitely be another! We hire photographers for one but some people just aren't comfortable hiring a photographer for their births for various reasons, ranging from finances to modesty. But that doesn't mean that you still can't have memories from the day you bring your child into the world! In this day and age, just about everyone has a camera in their pockets (your phone;))! So I'm going to share with you not only what to grab with it for memory’s sake, but why you'll be thanking me years down the road!
photography by Heather Whitten
photography by Heather Whitten
5 Pictures to Take (or Have Taken) at Your Birth
The final belly picture. This may be your first, only, or last pregnancy but either way, these are the last moments you'll look like this with that child inside of you! So grab a picture in the hospital gown or in the shorts and bralette you'll be laboring in at home. You'll cherish this picture because it shows you just how far your body was able to stretch during the amazing feat that is pregnancy!
A picture of you laboring. Whether this is a picture of you alone or with your support person (family, friend, partner, doula, etc.) you'll want to see what others were able to see while you were laboring...you! The power, the peace, the strength, the determination, the connection. This is my favorite thing to photograph as a birth photographer and the pictures that my clients are the most thankful for afterward.
A picture of that precious skin-to-skin time. This may happen right after birth or later on in the NICU, but either way, you'll want an image of these precious first bonding moments between you and your baby. The emotion (thanks, hormones!) running through your body in those moments are like no other. Capture that big smile, or tears to share with your baby one day when they are old enough to understand the story of the day they were born!
The placenta. If you ask a nurse, midwife, or doula, you can get a "placenta tour" afterbirth. They will show you the parts of the placenta and that gorgeous "tree of life" on one side. It may not be for everyone. But, if this is your jam, grab a picture! That's the organ that sustained your precious little one for so long and then it's just gone. Processed into capsules or smoothies for you or just thrown away. You can honor it by including it in the gallery of pictures when sharing about that big day.
A family picture, of course! The first of its kind! The first with this new life in it! Have a doula or nurse snap a few pictures of you all snuggled up in bed together for the first time. I promise you won't even notice your hair or swollen face in the years to come because you'll be so amazed that your child was ever that tiny in your arms!
photography by Heather Whitten
photography by Heather Whitten
Whether you plan to share these images along with a birth story with family and friends, just your children, or to keep them to yourself all together (or just for now), these moments are fleeting and once in a lifetime. So, take some pictures! Have something to connect you to that power and wonder of that day again, years down the road. Have something to show your child as you tell them the story of how they came to be. I'm 99% sure you'll not regret it...and, if you're the other 1% in this, all you have to do is hit "delete" and they are gone! But time has a way of sanding down the edges of things. We're so critical in the moment...of ourselves, of our births...tuck them into a folder and come back to them after you've had some time to process and give them another look. I hope you'll be able to see what everyone else saw there that day. That you're incredible!!
Heather Whitten is a documentary photographer, full spectrum doula, and the former Vice President of the Tampa Bay Birth Network. Documenting and supporting growing families through the commonplace and extraordinary moments of everyday life is something she's felt called to do for over a decade now. Heather uses her connection with her clients and the photos that she makes of them to equalize the space between expectations and reality, showing what life is really like through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum and that we are all less alone than we ever thought in our experiences. She lives in Maryland with her husband and four children.