The Home Stretch: Martha’s Vineyard Maternity Sessions

When I was very young, I didn’t know what the word “commencement” meant and I thought it meant “the end” because that’s what it was called when you graduated from school, when you finished. Not the word for starting, even though that is also what you are doing.

We have a similar askew idea in our conversations with expecting parents about being “almost done” or “almost there” as the pregnancy draws to its end - but I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that birth is not the finish line, but the starting line. Birth is an exit, but also an entrance.

A brief blip from one state to another, maternity photos are a chance to celebrate your body’s work, to document the changes that are wrought and still to come, and to save these liminal moments for your baby to look back on, as well.