Birth photography is not cheap. I am not going to sugarcoat that, and I am not going to spend the next twenty paragraphs trying to explain why I charge what I do. There are plenty of blogs that will break down the cost of camera gear, insurance, editing, being on call, missed holidays, childcare, backup photographers, and everything else that goes into doing this job well. That matters, but it is not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk to you as a mom.
Mom to mom.
Let’s say you spend $2,000 on birth photography. That is a lot of money. I know it is. You may have to plan for it, make payments, move things around, or say no to something else. You may look at that number and wonder how you could possibly justify spending it when there are car seats to buy, hospital bills coming, maternity leave to prepare for, and a baby who somehow needs an entire house full of things before they even get here.
But in a month, six months, or a year, you will make another $2,000. Money leaves and money returns. We earn it, spend it, save it, lose it to a broken air conditioner, and earn it all over again. That is simply how life works. I am not saying money does not matter. Of course it does. I am saying that money is one of the few things in this conversation that can return.
You will never birth this baby again.
You will never live this exact night again. You will never sway your hips to that one song at two in the morning while a contraction crashes over you. You will never grip your partner’s hand in that exact room, with that exact baby making their way toward you. You will never hear this child’s first cry for the first time again. You will never look down and see this baby on your chest for the very first time again.
Even if you have more children, there will never be this birth again. Every baby brings a different story. Every labor asks something different of you. You are a different woman each time. Your family is in a different season. Your relationship is different. The room is different. The people beside you are different. This baby will only arrive once, and this version of you will only exist once.
I know you love your partner. I am sure they are wonderful. I am sure they fully intend to be attentive, supportive, present, and somehow also remember to take all the photographs. But this is their first time navigating this birth too. They are not standing outside of the experience with a clear head and a camera ready. They are watching someone they love work harder than they have probably ever seen before. They are trying to comfort you, advocate for you, answer questions, remember where the chapstick went, refill your water, press on your hips, and keep themselves together while their child enters the world.
As a doula, I hear women say they wish their partner had been more attentive. But when a partner is truly attentive, they are usually not thinking about photographs. They should not have to choose between holding your hand and reaching for a phone. They should not have to step away from the moment your baby is born because someone needs to take the picture. They deserve to be in the story too.
And even when they do remember, let’s be honest. There is a very good chance the photograph is blurry, taken from underneath your chin, missing half the baby, or showing an angle you never want another human being to see. Somehow there are twenty photographs of the same moment, and you have seventeen chins in every single one. They try. It is a valiant effort. I love them for trying. But taking a few phone pictures while emotionally experiencing the birth of your child is not the same thing as having someone there whose sole purpose is to document what is happening with intention.
My job is not simply to take a technically correct photograph. My job is to see you. It is to notice the way your partner looks at you when you are not looking back. It is to catch the hand resting on your shoulder, the tears being wiped away, the quiet laugh between contractions, and the second everyone in the room realizes your baby is finally here. It is to photograph you in a way that lets you see the strength everyone else witnessed, rather than only remembering how tired, scared, or overwhelmed you felt.
Grandma may take a sweet photograph too. I love grandmas. She is probably incredibly proud and completely overwhelmed because, in her eyes, her little girl is having a baby. She is not thinking about light, angles, storytelling, or whether you are ready for the picture to be shared. She sees the six-year-old version of you and cannot wait to tell every person she has ever met how proud she is. Before you know it, that phone picture may be on Facebook before you have even told half the family the baby arrived.
She means well. Your partner means well. Everyone in the room means well. But their phone photographs were never meant to carry the full weight of your birth story.
I know you think you will remember everything. You think there is no possible way you could forget how awful that one contraction felt, the joke someone made at exactly the wrong time, or the random object you had to throw across the room to wake your partner when things became serious. You think you will remember every word, every face, every feeling, and every second because it is too important to forget.
But you will forget parts of it, my love. You really will.
Birth is physically and emotionally overwhelming. You are exhausted, flooded with hormones, running on adrenaline, and focused on getting through one moment at a time. Your brain is not calmly documenting every detail for later. It is helping you survive something enormous. The sharp edges soften because they have to. It is part of the reason so many of us swear we will never do it again and then, eventually, decide that maybe we could.
You may remember the overall story, but pieces will disappear. You may forget what your partner’s face looked like when the baby cried. You may forget that your mom covered her mouth before she started sobbing. You may forget the exact words your grandfather said when he winked at you and told you, “Good job, kiddo.” You may never know that any of those moments happened at all because you were looking somewhere else.
I do not want you to forget what it took to bring your baby here. I want you to see the woman who met wall after wall and kept going. I want you to see how hard you worked, how deeply you trusted yourself, and how many times you gathered whatever strength you had left and found a little more.
I want the mother who birthed her baby into her own hands to see the power everyone else saw in her. I want the mother whose plans changed to see that changing course did not make her weak. I want the mother who lay on an operating table, arms strapped down while trusting a room full of people to bring her baby safely into the world, to understand the tremendous strength that required too. There is not one single version of birth that deserves to be remembered more than another.
I want you to see the tears pouring down your partner’s face when your baby takes their first breath. I want you to see Grandma staring in complete disbelief as you pull your newborn close. I want you to see the nurse who squeezed your hand, the midwife who smiled when she heard that first cry, and the older sibling who stood on tiptoes trying to get the first look.
The money will return. The phone will eventually be replaced. The quality of those cell phone photographs will age, and some of them may disappear completely when devices break, accounts are lost, or nobody remembers where they were saved. Technology changes quickly. This birth does not get another version.
The cost of hiring a birth photographer is easy to calculate because it has a dollar amount attached to it. The cost of not hiring one usually does not become clear until much later, when your baby is no longer a baby and you realize how much of that day has already started to fade.
I think every mother eventually wishes for the same thing. Just one more snuggle with the baby who once fit so perfectly against her chest. One more chance to feel their weight in her arms, breathe in the top of their head, and hold them before they grew into the person they were always becoming. Just one more moment with the version of them that no longer exists.
I cannot give you that moment back. No one can.
But I can give you the next best thing. I can give you something tangible to hold when your memory is no longer enough. I can show you the way your baby fit against you, the way you looked at them, and the way the people you love looked at both of you. I can preserve the moments you remember and the ones you never got to see.
These photographs will outlive the phone they were viewed on, the house they were taken home to, and one day, even us. They will become part of your child’s history and something they can hold long after you are no longer here to tell them every detail yourself.
You can make more money.
You cannot birth this baby again.
And one day, when you would give almost anything for one more snuggle, you will still be able to see exactly how it felt to hold them for the very first time.
