It’s odd how such a painful day can end up being so close to your heart. I knew when I found out I was pregnant that I wanted pictures of this day. The questions I had were “who’s going to take them?” and “how’s this going to work?” I decided I would take pictures, and I would teach my husband how to use my camera so he could take some as well (funny enough I was a little busy during this time). As many many people will tell you, it was an incredibly…intense time. My daughter was born at 10:47 am on a Thursday morning. That moment was so incredibly surreal. I had a daughter. My nephew (who is three) used to ask me if he could see the baby when I was pregnant. Of course that wasn’t possible. But all of a sudden here she was. She was no longer this unseeable thing in my stomach that kicked me at inconvenient times. It was real. SHE was real. My daughter. As odd as this may be, the thing that threw me off the most was that she had hair; for some reason I didn’t expect that. She came into the world screaming at the top of her lungs, ready to take on the world! One of the most precious memories for me was seeing my husband interact with her for the first time. The nurses had taken her to get cleaned up under the heat lamps. She was screaming and crying, so Jeff went and put his face close to hers. She instantly stopped crying and stared into his eyes. They locked eyes for a few moments, and when he pulled away, he had tears in his eyes. In that beautiful, emotional, exhausted moment, he fell in love. And then he held his daughter.

I watched all of this from my hospital bed. I watched him fall in love, I watched my parents hold her and also fall in love. I watched her join this world and alter our family forever. And in the midst of it, we took pictures. Jeff took pictures of me, I took pictures of him, and we both took pictures of her. And now my daughter is 4 months old. She smiles, rolls over, plays with her feet, poops a lot, and loves her mum and dad. But I will forever cherish that day. Despite the pain (and I could tell some funny stories about that part of it as well), I will forever remember that day as a beautiful day.

And for those curious about the headline on the day she was born- November 3rd, 2016: “The Chicago Cubs Win the World Series”