You only live once!
Even before coming a mom, I have always enjoyed taking pictures for myself. When the kids started coming along, the amount of storage space on my camera and my computer began to fill up quickly. I love being able to get that perfect shot of my kids. I don't know a whole lot of photog jargon or tips and tricks, but I know how to take photos that I love. Therefore, prior to Charlotte joining the family, the husband wasn't exactly keen on my paying for professional pics of the boys when he felt that my own photos in and of themselves were actually good. (What he said. Not just patting myself on the back.)
However, having a girl changed that and I was determined to have them done right!
I called a friend of mine whom I have known since she was months old. She herself was adopted as a baby from Korea and we have kept in touch for many many years. She'll be pleased to know that even though I was technically shopping around for a photographer, I was 99% sure that I would use her regardless of price. I love being able to provide business to my friends as a client but on the plus side, I was already happy with the work she's done on newborn sessions.
As we began discussing options, I was excited to let her in on the secret about the adoption (since we weren't announcing on social media yet). That's when she began to tell me about Red Thread Sessions. As a member of their site, she would be able to donate her session to us because it was an adoption! A free professional session - heck yes!
Red Thread Sessions is specifically for adoptive families. Photographers can join to donate their time in order to capture a moment in an adoptive family's journey to creating their forever family whether it's at placement, at the airport or the final court date. As an adoptive mom, the idea of this organization just blesses my heart! Most adoptive families have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in order to adopt and become parents. So to have a team of people that recognize the gift that adoption is and to want to donate their time and effort to capture the beginnings or growth of a new family at little to no cost is beyond amazing. Adoptive parents don't even need to be familiar with a specific photographer. They can search the site and find one locally that is available!
Obviously, any purchases we wanted to make after the fact would still be out of pocket but by then we were just over the moon with the results that we had to purchase the rights to everything on top of a photo package.
Miss Charlotte was barely three weeks old when we visited the studio and even big brothers Noah and Aaron came along for the ride. If we were going to do professional pics, we might as well try to get them in as well! The one photo I want to share below is special to me because it is what we will be sending to our birth mom. At Charlotte's placement, I had a gift for our birth mom that was one part of a set of necklaces.
Our birth mom's necklace is a circle with a heart cut out of it...
which is what makes Charlotte's necklace: the heart.
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