I have always wanted to be a mom, I feel like that is what I was put on this earth to do. My husband and I both have Achondroplasia dwarfism and we knew that being parents might lead to heartache.

There is a 25% chance that every time we get pregnant, the baby could inherit the two dominate dwarfism genes and not survive out of the womb. I thought the chances were good though for us to have a healthy baby, 75% chance! The odds were in our favor!

We got pregnant about 5 years into our marriage and I was so excited! We went in for an amnio at around 16 weeks and found out we were having a boy! About 2 weeks later we got the heartbreaking news that our baby was double dominate and would not survive. I decided that this was my chance to be a mom to this baby boy and I was going to love and care for him for as long as I could. It was a rough pregnancy, the baby’s lungs were not developing and couldn’t process the amniotic fluid like a normal baby, therefore I was measuring huge! We knew that we were going to have only one day, if not just a few hours with our baby so we knew we wanted to have pictures taken to remember our first born forever.

We found Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and were so excited that it was a nonprofit and whoever we worked with would be super understanding of our situation. I worked in the wedding industry up until I couldn’t drive anymore due to the pregnancy so when I was looking through the list of photographers in our area I recognized one of them as a wedding photographer that I used to work with (Jordana Hazel). I knew that seeing a familiar face would be comforting to me.

The day of my son’s birth was sad but peaceful. We knew what the outcome would be and we had already done a lot of grieving so when he came we could just focus on loving him. I had to have a c-section due to my anatomy and when I came out of the OR and into recovery Jordana was right there in the background snapping away.

She never felt intrusive but she got all the moments that were important, his sweet hands and feet, and all the little moments we got to love on him.

He passed away about an hour after he was born and we got to spend most of the day with him. It was so wonderful to have Jordana capture the beautiful photographs of our son that we will cherish forever.

The next year we were so blessed to welcome a healthy baby girl and I finally got to be a mom, it was an amazing time in our lives! We decided to try again when our daughter was about two and a half. I figured that we already had our 1 out of 4 chance and we were going to be blessed again. We had another amnio and found out we were having a girl and we were so excited until we got the news that she was also going to be double dominate. Instead of being sad this time and treasuring every pregnancy moment with this one, I was angry.

The whole pregnancy was a blur because I had a daughter to take care of and I tried to keep myself distracted. We had moved to a different state so when it was time to deliver we found another Now I Lay me Down to Sleep photographer to take our pictures. I was in such a blur and so sad that I don’t even remember her name, but she came and took pictures and was so respectful.

I’m so happy we chose to document both of our losses. I didn’t get the chance to be a mom to two of my babies but I have the memories captured on film. They made the best out of an awful situation and we are forever grateful!

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