When our children are born, many of us choose to hire a photographer or ask someone to accompany us during childbirth to take pictures of this important event. Photographs of births and newborns are very powerful and impressive, because they capture forever that moment when we welcome a new human being and in which the woman demonstrates the wonderful ability she has to give life.
For photographer Lauren Chenault it was so important to capture this moment, that she decided to do it herself taking his own camera to his birth to take the first photographs of his second baby from her point of view.
Lauren had originally intended to take pictures during the birth of her first baby, but at the time of delivery she realized that she had not planned things as she should. "I didn't know I would have to hold my legs, so there was no way to do it"commented the photographer.
But she had a second chance to do it when she got pregnant again a year later, and this time, He made all the necessary planning so that he could take his photographs during childbirth. He prepared weeks in advance, asking his friends to function as "photography assistants," helping him hold his legs while practicing for the big moment.
"I said to them, 'Well, you hold my leg, and you hold the other, and I will be taking the photographs"Lauren recalls. And that's how he managed to capture the images of his birth, in which he gave birth to his son Kai Arthur.
Something that helped him to plan things better was that he had time to prepare every detail, since his birth was scheduled to be induced. So she she asked the nurses to place the operating room lights so that she and the doctor could do their job and even took some test shots.
Her husband was at her side supporting her during childbirth, while she documented the birth of her second child. "I placed the camera on my chest and I was simply taking dozens of photos, hoping I had managed to capture everything"said Lauren.
For her birth, she took with her five friends, the "photography assistants", as well as her husband, and comments that he doesn't feel that taking pictures has distracted him from childbirth. "I wasn't really looking at the camera, so I could see from both perspectives. When I was bidding, my eyes were closed, but I don't feel like I missed something if I hadn't had the camera with me".
Lauren hopes that her photos and her story will help educate people who have never been in childbirth to see how they really are., and even she realized that two of her friends had no idea what could happen. "They had only seen it in movies, so I tried to explain that in reality they are not like that. They don't look anything like them. Many people expect to see a screaming woman and bleeding everywhere".
Her biggest surprise was to capture the shots she wanted, since she says she wasn't even turning to look at the camera. "I think it is impressive that women can do this and we can also document it this way. It is very impressive. I really hope this is what other women take from this experience".
While she is not the first mother to take photographs of her own birth, it is always amazing to see how they managed to do both. Childbirth photographs are so powerful and impressive that seeing them from the mother's point of view makes them even more amazing.
