I have to confess a couple of things to you, my friends and clients.  The first is that I fall a little bit in love with each baby I have the privilege to meet.  I adore their little fingers and toes, wrinkly skin, downy soft hair, and all of the tiny features that make them unique.

I have always adored babies.  One of my favorite memories is rocking my godmother’s infant daughter for hours at the Virginia coast.  She was six weeks old and being a fuss-bucket – the only people who could calm her were her mother and I, so we took turns.  I was maybe twelve or thirteen.  How many teenagers bond that quickly to a crying infant?   I was told I was a natural and I still hear that today.

I’ve always known I wanted to be a mother, as well.  I used to dream about it, even as a child playing ‘house’ with my friends.   I couldn’t wait to decorate a nursery in happy anticipation, sing lullabies to my sweet babies while I rocked them, and watch them grow every day, learning about the world around them the way only a child can.

Unfortunately, becoming a mother hasn’t come as easily as it did in my dreams.  My husband and I made the decision early on to wait until we felt we had a stable foundation within our home and marriage to provide for a child.  When we felt we’d reached that point and decided to start trying to make our dreams of a family come true, there were many failed cycles, a couple of military deployments and a little thyroid cancer for me thrown into the mix.  A few years later, we are still trying to add a child to our family.

I tell you all of this, not because I want your sympathy, but so that you understand just how important each of your babies are to me and to give you a little insight about just how much I love what I do.  I look at your little ones and I see a little bit of my future child in them.  I wonder what he or she will look like, sound like, even smell like, as I’m snuggling your own little miracle.  Newborn sessions bring me a sense of serenity like nothing else can.  Every baby I meet is a reminder of what we will someday have, and I understand more than most how precious the sweet little ones in my arms really are.

I love my job!

No one believes her when she tells people she has a daughter in her late 20s.