Things I regret;


  • Not getting newborn photos of my son because I thought I couldn’t afford it and that I could do it myself. 


  • I think I spent more on nursery decor items that didn’t stand the test of time than I would have on photography.


  • The second time around when I knew better, I couldn’t get photos even if I wanted to because of the pandemic. No one could have predicted that.


  • Even as someone who loved photography, I didn’t truly understand the value until I saw how fast my own babies were growing. 


  • Not getting professional maternity photos. When I realised it was something I wanted, I was 37 weeks. All I could find was a photographer offering a model call for a milky bath session (it was the trend at the time). I drove over an hour to squeeze into a strangers tiny bath tub only to receive photos that didn’t even show my face. My son was born at 38 weeks and I missed the chance to fix that mistake. 


  • The second time around when I knew better, it was peak pandemic, I was stressed, anxious, overweight and couldn’t even bring myself to take some self portraits. I didn’t look like me, feel like me and all I have is a couple of iPhone photos. 


Things I don't regret;


  • Finally getting the photos, even when they were 18 months and 3.5 years. 


  • It was such a tough time for me personally, but I’d spontaneously booked a trip to Queensland after about lockdown number 4 and I was going to make some memories and have them documented no matter what. 


  • I’d had surgery 2 weeks before, I was puffy, swollen, my incisions were still healing… but when I got the photos back… I didn’t see how puffy I was.. (I did in some) but in the majority? I saw how much I loved my kids from an outside perspective, something I never would have had just doing it myself or even getting my husband to. I saw how we love each other, play together.. in a way that I hadn't seen.. not being in the photos. 


  • Not every photo is perfect, I do see my flaws in some. But no one is perfect. Perfect isn’t real. We are real. What we feel is real. And that’s what my kids get to see forever, how much we love each other. 


  • Now I do it every year, and it still feels like it’s not enough. But we have them, and I love them, and they’re ours forever. I will never regret the decision to do it.