Eeeek! In case you don’t follow us on Instagram or Facebook and haven’t heard the news yet, I’m pregnant!
And I’m supposed to be editing right now but I couldn’t help but take a little break to share this post! We reached 20 weeks of our pregnancy this week and we are so thrilled! We’re still nervous about everything (what first-time parents aren’t?!) but every pregnancy deserves to be celebrated so to celebrate, I’m sharing a little recap of the first half of my weekly bump project!
Jay and I found out we were expecting very early – at week four! But it took me a week to figure out how I wanted to document our weekly bump growth so we started documenting at Week 5. I have done two other weekly bump projects before – one for my sister-in-law and one for my best friend, and those were both quite involved (we’re talking lots of props and weekly trips to the supermarket for all kinds of fruits and vegetables)! But this time, I knew we’d be super busy during the first half of our pregnancy (helloooo shooting 22 weddings plus a ton of engagements and newborns during the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy alone!) so I wanted to keep things suuuuper simple. I bought a plain white fitted dress from my favorite maternity store Pink Blush and I’ve been putting it on every Sunday for the 2 minutes it takes to get the shot. The dress is super stretchy so I’m hoping it will last through the entire pregnancy. Next, I searched for an app to add the graphics to each weekly picture. I wanted something with color to contrast against the neutral palette of my backdrop and dress. I ended up choosing Baby Story and purchased the “Compare with Fruits” option. We’ve been pretty good about keeping to Sunday as the day when we take the picture but I do give myself grace if I’m not feeling up to it on Sunday and I switch it to Monday if needed.
I’m really happy with how this project is going. I made sure it’s easy to complete by keeping with one dress the entire project, I don’t worry too much about my hair, I keep my makeup pretty natural, and most importantly, I don’t drive Jay crazy with taking the picture over and over. Generally, he snaps 1-3 images at most and that’s it! Since we’re taking the pictures in my newborn studio using studio lighting we don’t even have to worry about taking the picture at the same time every week due to lighting. Some of these were taken in the morning, others in the afternoon, and others at night. The perks of having a studio at my disposal, ha! Not to mention a husband who is a photographer =)
I also love that Jay is so into this project, too. He always asks me “We’re taking the picture today, right?” and I think it’s adorable. I always send him the edited picture with the graphic and he has a little album of them on his phone. So adorable and sweet! But most of all, what I love about this project is that some day our daughter will get to see how absolutely thrilled we are to welcome her and how ready we are to be her parents.
If you are expecting, I highly recommend documenting your bump, too! My biggest advice would be to not worry about whether or not your hair looks good or anything like that – your son or daughter will only care about seeing how much you mean to them. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you’re curious about how I announced our pregnancy over on our main blog, click here!