I must have blinked. I remember being pregnant. Huge. Taking maternity pictures. Planning the nursery. I remember saving to order 2 wraps and a few minimal props for the newborn photography session I'd planned down to the smallest detail. This was my rainbow baby and truly I didn't know what to expect from baby #2 but whatever it was, I was just grateful she was still cookin'.
But I was scared.
I was on heavy medication for my auto-immune disorder. We found out that we were expecting right after my first infusion. If I stopped the medication, I couldn't start it up again. It would be safer for the baby for me
to continue the medication than risk another miscarriage, but so much was unknown.
I remember being so scared on the operating table that I nearly passed out. I wanted her out and I wanted to hear that cry. I told my husband "whatever happens, you go with her."
And then there she was. They pulled this massive squish out of me and all I heard was the doctor saying...
"That is a 10 pounder if I ever saw one."
My anesthesiologist said "She's beautiful!"
And I cried.
She is okay.
She is okay.
She’s alive and healthy and crying.
"Of course she is! She's a beautiful healthy girl! You did great."
That wonderful woman was definitely confused because from first glance- it was a perfectly healthy pregnancy. This chunky baby was fine and so were we.
But it was high risk. Constant appointments. Constant thoughts of early delivery or unseen complications....constant "we will just have to see."
I think I placed a lot of blame on myself for our miscarriage. I would assume most mothers feel that way when you lose one. I feel like my body, my auto- immune disorder, stole our baby from us. I was so scared that it would happen again and I vowed to keep as low stress as possible during Quinn's pregnancy. I'm talking lighting incense and listening to meditation music for hours multiple times a day. Whatever kind of Zen vibe monks had-that's what I needed. This included not even announcing our pregnancy until around 25 weeks. I wanted no added stress that may trigger a flare and cost us our rainbow.
And then...it was like a new world opened. She was an eater and a sleeper and nearly silent compared to her sister who hated all of the above, haha.
And then I must have blinked...because she is turning one.
She has added so much joy to our lives and has definitely kept us on our toes.
Cake smashes are usually about growth. Celebrating that first year and how much they blossom into cute little stubby humans. But, I really wanted to capture how many joyous moments we had with our rainbow squish. So I came up with this idea.
She's a photographer's kid. And she has a ton of pictures. Newborn pictures, Maternity pictures (somewhat invisible in those, haha), 6 month milk baths, random cell snapshots. But they are all so important. I didn't want any of them to be because they are all such beautiful moments of her entire first year. So I included them!
Behind her are photos that we love that document her first 365 days of life. She has a little wooden camera (that she refused to truly pose with because she is a spitfire) but the theme is there, regardless.
I was surprised she didn't completely destroy the cake, and her outfit didn't arrive in time (so we squished into a studio outfit), but man...is she cute.
Enjoy!!
