I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was to do this session.  Not only is this mama absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and kind-hearted, but she’s also asked me to document her first home birth experience in the coming months!  In addition, we have so many things in common ranging from our love of photography to our passion for natural birth, yoga, breastfeeding and all other things related to pregnancy and holistic living.  We were actually referred to each other by a mutual friend who runs the most amazing pre-, post-natal and kids yoga studio in the northwest suburbs of Chicago (whom I HIGHLY recommend, so be sure to check out her studio if you get a chance – Radiant Heart Yoga).

On the day of our session we drove together to the location and on the way there I took great note of her and her hubby’s gentle parenting skills and their ability to make even a car ride a fun and exciting adventure for little J.  J munched on pez – which is one of my all-time favorite candies – as we embarked on a ‘turbo speed’ car ride to our ‘snipe hunt trip’ in the woods (oh how I miss being a kid again!).  Once we arrived, we let the dogs run free and J traversed the tall field grass with a twig in hand like a real-life Huck Finn as we hung out and took photos.  I am so happy and thankful that this family allowed me to share these images, particularly those of just mama bird in her most natural and beautiful state.  As I said before, I love mothers and babies and all things pertaining to pregnancy – it’s one of those things that make me so unbelievably proud to be a woman. On another note, if you follow my blog then you already know my feelings about society and its unending pressures for us to be perfect and beautiful.  Extending from that and relating that idea to motherhood, I’m always so sad at how we’ve made women ashamed of this miraculous gift we have to give life – oh you got stretch marks? Love handles? Double chin? Can’t fit into those regular jeans anymore?  We’ve made women feel embarrassed about these less than desirable effects of pregnancy, all the while causing us to forget that if we didn’t experience these things and if we didn’t get bigger then we couldn’t provide nourishment to our babies growing inside of us.  Anyway, just a few thoughts of mine and I hope that both my words and these images will inspire you to feel differently about your own pregnancy, future pregnancies or just about pregnancy in general.

.. and on the car ride home, J requested we all roll down our windows and go turbo speed.  Pure joy :o)