The Facebook memory of this photo had me feeling all sorts of things when it popped up 9 years later. This is a candid shot from Gage’s newborn photo shoot and seeing it took me back in time to that day. The fact that we had a newborn photo shoot at all fills me with gratitude. I hadn’t made it a priority, not knowing what I didn’t know, but a friend insisted she take pictures for us, and refused to accept any payment. She spent not one, not two, but FOUR hours with us that day staging adorable shots of our tiny baby boy. But one of my favorites is the candid one she captured while I was soothing him. It’s not posed and not perfect, but it’s so real. The pacifier poking between fingers…the scrunched up baby body held against my chest…gah, I can almost feel his perfect, soft baby skin on mine.
Seeing this photo brings back so many emotions I was experiencing that day. It was a wide range. I showed up for our session boiling mad after ending a call with human resources about insurance coverage for a medication Gage needed. They suggested I just pay out of pocket while the issue was resolved. The cost of the med was over $1,100 a month. These were the things Evan and I were regularly dealing with in the earliest days in Gage’s life—prescription prices, appointments, unknowns. During those moments, I didn’t realize how far from normal it was. As I ranted about that phone call when first walking through the door, our sweet photographer friend just listened in an understanding way. I’ll always be grateful for that. She was a mom too and offered empathy and grace. Things like sleepless nights and feeding issues typical for many newborns gave me a sense of normalcy—a way to relate to parents I knew—but coupled with some of our “extra” things, it felt overwhelming. I can see now that those hard things positioned us to be on the receiving end of so much kindness and help.
As the photo session got underway, my emotions improved drastically when Gage took center stage, curled up on tiny props and sharing the sweetest smiles. Especially when he was in my arms, the anger easily melted away into the most contented adoration of the precious life I was holding. What a gift he was and still is. And what a gift are the amazing people God puts in our path to love and support us. The photos we have from that session gifted to us are priceless treasures we’ll always value—a captured moment in time that held so many intense emotions.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Psalms 139: 13-16