baby girl's newborn photos

Aaaaahhhhh!  It has taken me so long to finish editing Everly's newborn photos.  Partly because I have been busy taking care of the beautiful baby pictured below, and partly a whole lot of emotional reasons.  It seemed like every time I sat down to edit these pictures, I was flooded with so many emotions, that I couldn't continue.  Every time I look at these pictures, I am reminded how I was feeling when they were taken.  The first several were taken the very first day we brought her home from the hospital.  I was so relieved to finally have her home, yet I hadn't fully processed everything that had happened during the previous nine days while she was in the NICU.  I was tired, emotional and physically, and as I tried to be the new momma and the photographer all at once, I became a little overwhelmed.  I had already cried over the fact that we may have missed our perfect newborn photo window.  I always try to take newborn photos in the first 7 days after the baby is born, and we brought her home on day 9.  This may sound so trivial, but over the past several years, as I studied photography, and each time I took photos of a tiny new baby girl, I dreamed about what it would be like to take pictures of my own daughter some day.  As her delivery date drew near, I planned and prepped and dreamed of all the magical photos I was finally going to take of my very own tiny princess.  

As I started to take her pictures, only hours after we were finally able to bring her home, I was filled with so much joy and happiness.  She was perfect.  She calmly looked at the camera, she slept soundly and let me pose her.  She may not have been as mold-able as I would have liked, but it didn't matter.  My dream of dressing up and photographing my baby girl had come true.

Another challenge I faced when editing these pictures, which made me stop more than once, was knowing how much to edit them.  It is so clear in many of the pictures with her eyes open, just how yellow her eyes were.  

A large part of me wanted to photoshop the yellow out so that when someone looks at these pictures, their first thought isn't, wow her eyes are so yellow, and they just see the beautiful baby.  In the end, I decided to leave them just as they are, because that is the truth.  These beautiful yellow eyes, and the orange-toned skin in many of the pictures,  help tell her story.

These 38 heel pricks also tell part of her story.  It's going to be a long time before I can look at that photo and not feel a lump in my throat for what my tiny, brand new baby had to go through those first 9 days.  

The blanket that Everly is laying on in the next series of photos was my baby blanket.  As in the blanket that my grandma made me when I was born, and the blanket that was on my bed for most of my childhood.  The edges are tattered and torn from being loved, and my heart swells looking at these pictures of my own baby girl with my cherished baby blanket.

I love taking pictures of babies in their rooms.  I worked so hard on making Everly's room perfect, and since this is a place she will spend a lot of time as she grows up, it will be fun to see how she changes.

Now I've got to fill all those frames with these pictures I finally finished!

I'm so happy that despite the struggles (both real and imagined) with getting these newborn photos, that I have them to look at and remember not only what Everly looked like when she was tiny and new, but also how much I loved her already.  I will cherish these photos forever.