Kim and G as Nearly 3

I found Lacey through one of the several Abu Dhabi mom's facebook groups that I subscribe to. She was advertising looking for a model for birth stories, which I've been on the fence about for a long time.  On the one hand, I really want to remember those first newborn moments.  I also remember a good friend of mine, Brenda, delivered at a hospital in Houston that had a professional photographer come the day after delivery to take a professional stylized newborn shoot - it seemed so easy and convenient since Brenda and her husband were new parents; how nice to have that service at the hospital! On the other hand, I'm sure if I'll be ready to be photographed right after delivering, and the hospital I've chosen here in Abu Dhabi definitely doesn't have a designated photographer.  It seems a little weird to have a photographer in the delivery room too.

Enter Lacey.  I skimmed through her examples, and I loved them!  Her birth story photos are tasteful, but still real.  I emailed her right away to tell her I was interested, and unfortunately as fate would have it, she is planning to spend the summer back in the USA - her return date is right about when I'm due to deliver.  I still wanted to work with her, so I asked if she'd consider maternity or newborn photos and she said yes!  So we squeezed in a last minute appointment before she jets off to the States.

We went through a big "Apartment Cleaning" exercise since we wanted everything to look pretty neutral for the photo shoot. Our apartment has no storage (as discussed in #FirstWorldProblems) so we moved as much clutter from the living room and our master bedroom into the guest bedroom as we could.  I commented on how nice the apartment looked, and G looked at me and said "You know this is all fake right?  We are clean, but we're not THIS clean.  This is not how we actually live!" That's the nature of photo shoots...enhanced reality 😉.

Anyway, Lacey was amazing.  Lacey IS amazing!  She is super professional, and she came with a mood board of shots she wanted to capture.  This was great, because other than one particular photo I had in mind, I had no idea what I wanted.  She also improvised with our space, and took some fabulous photos of G playing his guitar.  One of my favorite moments was when we were playing around with ideas for showing off my baby bump, and she asked if I had a robe. I showed her a magenta cotton robe that I love - I purchased it when I was visiting Tokyo in 2010. She asked if I had a steamer since it was wrinkled. I jokingly said "no, but I have a G...." and he actually took me seriously and pulled the ironing board and iron out of the guest room ironed it for me while she finished setting up.  She was so impressed at his mad skills that photographed him. My husband is the best ever!!!

Anyway, a few of the shots from our session are below, and she also put together a short video of the full collection (including a little surprise at the end!).

Photos courtesy of Lacey Sexson Photography!   We had so much fun working with you, and we love the photos that you've given us.  We can't wait to work with you again when Linh is born!