Weekly Pregnancy Photos

Weekly Pregnancy Photos, or weekly bump shots, if you will, can be a very fun way to capture memories of a pregnancy.  When I was pregnant with Flintstone (now 3), MacGyver took similar pictures of me in the same outfit every week to capture the progression of the belly. Here is a sampling:

I really loved this project, but decided I would do a better job of it if I did it again. I thought it would be cool to be able to put together something like this:

But to do that, I’d have to be a little better at getting the pictures exactly the same every time – not something I’m very skilled at (especially with traveling around and, well, laziness – ha).

Then, last year, I saw this on Baby Making Machine:

She captured her whole pregnancy in these adorable weekly notes. And I instantly knew that if I was lucky enough to get pregnant again, I would be stealing this idea.

I decided to stick with the same outfit in every shot in case I do them well enough to make a strip like the one above. That said, there’s no chance my hair will look the same in every one, which will throw off the continuity a little.

Jennifer from Baby Making Machine wore different outfits and did both a front and side profile in each shot. Looking through her pictures again, I really love to double shots each time, but the amount of time and effort required to shoot different poses and figure out how to put them together is beyond both my schedule and my skills. It’s a squeeze just to find time to take one picture a week and type on it! I am not a photographer and have neither the equipment nor the software to pull off something as polished as Jennifer’s project, but I think the project I’m undertaking is good enough for my purposes – capturing memories and and reflecting an open and honest reflection of pregnancy.

I take the picture on Sunday, which is the last day of each “Pregnancy Week,” for me. Then I fill in the picture with my pregnancy-related memories of that week.

In an effort to keep this project honest, I refuse to photoshop myself (I don’t have photoshop or any experience in photo editing anyway, ha). If I have stretch marks or gain a lot of weight, you’ll see it. I do use basic editing tools to brighten the pictures and maybe tweak the colors if necessary. My goal is to continue this project past delivery for an unspecified period of time in a manner similar to the 4th Trimester Bodies project.

Here are the pictures I have done so far:

(Note: The flower pots to the side contain marigold and pumpkin seeds that will – theoretically – grow as the belly grows)