“Zach and I, about a year into our marriage, had an overwhelming feeling that we were ready for the next step, children! We had traveled a lot, spent countless weekends at the lake hanging out with friends, attended our nieces recitals and birthday parties, and watched her open gifts at Christmas. We so badly longed for a child of our own, so we began to pray that God would, in his timing, answer our prayers. Just 3 short months later we were sharing the news of pregnancy to our families!
So here I was, just 22 years old and a first-time mom. Man, I thought I had it all figured out. I had a birth plan and knew everything would go as I had perfectly planned. I did prenatal yoga and light exercise throughout my first two trimesters to stay healthy and ensure I was doing my part with making sure my plan goes off without a hitch. I absolutely loved being pregnant. I loved the ‘glow,’ I loved the sickness, I loved feeling the baby move in my belly, the mood swings and hot flashes, everything! Everything about being pregnant made me feel like every moment in my life had led to this very adventure.
I began to have complications around 24 weeks when the doctor told me I was at risk for a C-section because of placenta previa. I was devastated. I had this perfect picture of how my pregnancy and delivery would go, and possibly having to have a C-section left me feeling completely out of control. It became very clear that I needed to have an open mind. Birth does not always go as planned, and I needed to be prepared for whatever was to come as having a healthy baby was our top priority.
I was put on bed rest at 33 weeks, just one week shy of my maternity photo shoot, something I had longed for so badly. But due to complications with high blood pressure it was just not possible. That is when I decided I would put my trust in Callynth, my photographer, to capture my birth story since I had felt robbed of the opportunity to capture my pregnancy. After much prayer over the situation and four long weeks of bed rest, I delivered a healthy baby boy at 37 weeks, The first boy born into either side of our family in 25 years!
It was very important to us to have our family and friends apart of our birth story. During our time at the hospital there was close to 15 people in the room at all times and many more in the waiting room. Callynth did an amazing job at capturing this side of the story for me — things I wasn’t able to see because, well, I was a little busy, I was able to experience in her studio for the first time as she played our birth story for us on the big screen. She had the lights down low and as the music played and the photos came across the screen one by one, the tears rolled down my face! It was truly a very intimate and emotional experience to see everything happening outside of that delivery room.
My mother has always been my rock. She is one of the strongest women I know. So when it came time to deliver, of course there is nowhere else I would have wanted her to be other than alongside my husband and I. She lost a baby girl just 11 months before I was born, after trying for years to conceive after the birth of my older brother. So to have gotten pregnant with my sister was a miracle, and to get pregnant a second time, only months after the tragic loss of a child was, in my parents eyes, was a gift from God.
Now, as a mother myself, I can confidently say that her expression to her miracle baby girl having a baby of her own could not have been captured more perfectly.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Callynth Photography on behalf of Kalyn McMillan in Texas. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best love stories here.
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