Tag: Missoula Mama

Missoula Woman- Family & Birth

1 Comment

Megan found me on Instagram- searching home birth hashtags for Missoula. When we consulted I was blown away by her fierce energy to have the birth experience she felt best for her self and her baby. She was this petite bubbly, messy bunned mama on the screen of my computer bursting with energy and chatter in the most positive light.
She was planning on a home birth. She talked with such conviction, such confidence, self love, reasonable expectations based on thorough birth research- I couldn’t help but be left with a tingling excitement for HER and myself- that I was being invited to witness her birth story.
I get to call Megan my friend. We have had countless birth aware and birth justice conversations over food and coffee dates. We have hiked together, laughed, cried, adventured, created art. I love her little family. I had the honor of photographing her first and now second birth stories. Megan is a lover, a lover of birth and women’s birth rights, lover of hard work, her husband and babies- you can see in her eyes and gorgeous dimpled smile she has a pure joy for life. She is a cup filler. Her children are lucky to have her. Our community is lucky to know her.

Leave a comment

I was inspired to update my about me page from a current birth client. She thought it was important that mamas know simple and easing things about me. For instance, that when I come to your home I will not judge. I have lived most of my mothering life with a Golden Retriever and understand the wafting dog hair. Also, I have always had cats in my life and I love cats. Our current girl’s name is Tawny Cat and she loves to sleep and shed in my green velvet chairs. I live with and work hard, some days, to manage clutter. Being a mom and nursing a total of 9 years, I also am accustomed to hoodie sweatshirts that have not been washed in three days and undoubtedly smell of sour breast milk and may just have toddler boogers on the sleeve. So, although you are trusting me to come into your space, I am coming from my own space. My own motherhood journey. I think that adds a world of value to what I do.  A woman, a mother- photographing mothers. Let that settle in your soul.

If what I say next resonates with you, then I am your photographer.

My words won’t touch the heart of each and everyone that reads on, but my hope is that for those they do touch- you trust me to be your story teller, and for those I won’t touch, let my images continue to move you.

I want to see your lines, the hard and soft. I want to love your skin through my honest photography. I want to savor your baby’s first moments with accurate, artful documentation. I want to show you, your power. Let me share with you my cesarean stories, I hope they warm your belly. Where there is shadow, I will capture it’s richness. Give me light, I will give it back unfiltered. I want your real.

I want to be amongst the dust of your life.

I am a mother. I have four children. I am a wife. My husband has been filling my heart with music since 1998 and has filled my children’s hearts in the womb. I know clutter & chaos. I know diapers on the back porch. I know golden retriever love, and the endless hair. I know sleepless nights, piled high dishes and breast milk engorgement. I am made of stretch marks and scar tissue. I am shaped by 9 years of breast feeding. I know feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders with a small, perfect babe in my lap. I know deep, loneliness. I know an abundance of joy and pride through motherhood.