Belly Timeline!

“Being pregnant is the most natural thing our bodies can do.  Our grandparents did it without all these books, and they came out okay.” – Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Hi Friends!

In the past week I’ve had two different conversations about timelines for belly photos [and baby photos, but we’re sticking with belly info for this blog], and I thought to myself, THIS is actually not a terrible thing to bring up on the blog and chat about!

First, I think women’s bodies are AMAZING.  They can harbor life for nine months [or 40 weeks, if you are actually the one that’s pregnant ;)] and birth tiny babies [that maybe don’t feel so tiny when they are being birthed].  It’s incredible!

And to me, it feels really natural to want to capture the time in your lives where your body is growing a tiny human.  To capture the excitement, and the anticipation, and that short window of time before your life alters from what it was [because, lets be real, even though baby #1 might alter your life the most, each new baby changes it a bit!]

A belly/baby bump portrait session is a wonderful way to do it!  Get’s you out from your bathroom mirror selfies, in front of my camera, and into a beautiful setting where we can photograph this time in your life of loving on the baby that’s coming, before you have to deal with poopy diapers, middle of the night feedings, and general lack of sleep [obviously, not having kids myself, this is all hearsay, but it comes from good sources].

WHICH, brings us to the big question: WHEN!?!?

General consensus is to have your portraits taken 32 to 36 weeks into your pregnancy.  But, just like the color of our hair differs from person to person, so does each woman’s pregnancy.

You’ll want to take some time to think about how big you WANT to look?  33 weeks will show a smaller bump, you probably wont be as uncomfortable yet, BUT, it might also not be quite as obvious.  How much you’re showing depends on height, petite-ness, etc.

As a photographer, the only time I would caution against is the last month of pregnancy.  From what I hear, it’s not really comfortable, and if you schedule your session and the baby comes early, you could miss out on your belly portraits altogether.

Below a couple friends shared what week they were on at their session.  Hopefully this post is helpful!

Cheers!
~Maike
*above, Lindsey was 34 weeks pregnant with baby Luke [who came exactly two weeks after their session and 4 and a half weeks before his due date; so glad we planned it early!]
*above, Sarah was 29 weeks pregnant with baby Hannah.
*above, Bonni was 25 weeks pregnant with baby Alayna [Bonni’s a close friend and we just happened to schedule a girls week in Phoenix and we were able to take her belly images, so that’s why we were so early on her session; she had to work to push her belly out to make it appear bigger].

*above, Amanda was 32 weeks pregnant with baby Graham.