Six Things I Recommend For Pregnant Moms

Pregnancy can be such a fun, exciting time for expecting mommas, but it can also have its hurdles! Though I was fortunate enough to have a mostly “normal”, easy pregnancy, it wasn’t without a few physical discomforts and emotions that never quit. ;) So I have put together a little list of things that helped me with my pregnancy, in hopes that it may help any ladies out there who are navigating their own pregnancy now, or who may in the future. (Of course, consult your doctor as needed! Try these things at your own risk! 😉)

1. Tea!

I am a huge coffee lover, and though I try to only have one, maybe two cups on a normal day, during my first trimester of pregnancy I had a strange aversion to coffee. I wanted to want my daily cup of joe, and would even fix a cup, only to take a sip and not be able to drink any more of it. I stopped trying to drink it, but missed that cozy warm treat in the mornings, so I switched to a cup of homemade chai tea instead. It wasn’t quite the same, but it did help me get through until my second trimester, when I started being able to drink coffee again (though I couldn’t drink it without sugar until my 3rd trimester! Baby James had a sweet tooth, that’s for sure!) **On a side note, I have talked with a few other moms of boys, and they had a weird coffee aversion during pregnancy too! Any other mommas have this experience? If so, did you give birth to a boy or a girl? :)

Another fun little pregnancy symptom I experienced was some insomnia, especially in my early 3rd trimester. I found that if I drank some chamomile tea before bed I would sleep MUCH better! It knocked me out!!

2. Yoga

I had a mostly good pregnancy, but that first trimester nausea and morning sickness was no joke. I never realized how mentally exhausting it would be to battle nausea all day until I was in that season, and it will wear a girl out! Thankfully, it eased up a ton at the beginning of my second trimester, and was pretty much gone for good after about week 20. However, I found that if I did at least Episode 1 of Katy Appleton’s pregnancy yoga series on YouTube, it would help a lot with my energy and, surprisingly, my nausea.

This episode focuses mostly on breathing and very simple stretching, but I could tell a big difference in the days I did it and the days I skipped. It’s just 10 minutes long, so if you are up for trying it (after making sure it’s okay with your doctor!) you can check it out at the link above! (I recommend the other yoga videos in that series, too, if you are looking for a simple yoga practice to try during your pregnancy. Again, consult your doctor first. 🙃)

3. These Books

Though I never actually read “What to Expect While You’re Expecting”, I did read these two books (and a few others) during pregnancy, and I recommend them both!
The First Forty Days focuses a lot on your recovery period, mentally and physically, after you give birth, and talks about being graceful with yourself, accepting help from those who want to help, and has recipes and tips for foods to incorporate into your postpartum diet to help with healing. (Jimmy actually got this one for me, it was so thoughtful of him!)
Hypnobirthing: Practical Ways To Make Your Birth Better is one that I highly recommend for first time moms especially, who may be a bit nervous about giving birth. This book may sound a little “woo-woo” (the word “Hypnobirthing” in the title is a little misleading— it doesn’t have anything to do with hypnosis!) and some parts of it include exercises for visualizations and such for during labor, but I found a lot of the advice in the book helpful, and even things I didn't know I’d use ended up coming in handy later! It also has a whole chapter on the actual birthing process, which helped me understand what the different stages of labor were and explained some medical terms I didn’t know before then. Though the midwife at the hospital directed me through different breathing exercises during labor than what is illustrated in the book, I still find myself using the calming ones at times when I am feeling anxious.

(I found there’s no way to make a pregnancy pillow look glamorous in a photo, haha!)

4. Pregnancy Pillow

My sister gave me a pregnancy pillow to use at the beginning of my pregnancy, and though I didn’t use it at first, around Thanksgiving I all of a sudden had back pain and could not get comfortable in bed. This pillow solved both of those issues, and I was forever grateful to have that on hand when I needed it! Though I think Jimmy is a bit happy to have this out of our lives now, it does take up a bit of room. 😄

5. The Pregnancy Podcast

Maybe a lot of moms go into pregnancy knowing all there is to know about everything, but I felt a little lost, especially at the beginning. The Pregnancy Podcast was such a great resource! I found a lot of answers to questions I had, from the simple ones to the more embarrassing ones. 😬 She didn’t seem to push any certain kind of agenda, but presented a lot of her own research on topics without coming across judgmental if you chose a different kind of birth plan than she did. She isn’t a doctor, but I found her podcast to be super helpful and clarifying.

6. These Prenatal Vitamins

I did so. much. research. about so. many. things. and maybe not surprisingly, prenatal vitamins turned out to be a bit intimidating to read about. There were a ton of vitamins and supplements that every company told you you needed, and it different amounts, in different forms, and it was stressing me. 😂 So, after listening to the Pregnancy Podcast I mentioned above and hearing her talk about these prenatal vitamins from Zahler, I decided to look those up and found a lot of great things to be said about them. I tried them and they worked great for me, though they do have a strong-ish smell so (speaking from experience) you may not want to keep them in a small cabinet and inhale when you open it, especially if you have any kind of nausea to contend with! 🥴 I still take them while I am breastfeeding. I haven’t had any reflux from them, but I do recommend taking them with food as it says on the packaging.
You can find them on Amazon here, but if you go to www.pregnancypodcast.com and scroll down, you’ll find a 20% off coupon code for them (at least at the time of this blog!) Of course, ask your doctor before taking them and all that. :) I don’t get anything out of saying this, I just had a good experience with these!

Congratulations to any expecting mommas who may be reading this! I hope you have a wonderful pregnancy and a positive birthing experience. I know right now is a weird time in the world, but you’ve got this and you will be a great mom to your little one! And remember on the hard days to tell yourself, as Practical Ways to Make Your Birth Better says, “My body was made to birth (and I would add, to carry!) this baby”. I believe in you. :)

Five Things I Wouldn't Change About Our Wedding

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On a beautiful day in March two years ago, Jimmy and I said our wedding vows to each other in front of our closest friends and family. I remember the day feeling so surreal, like a dream, and it was over before we knew it. Though some parts of our wedding feel like a blur, we made some lovely, sweet memories that I hold close to my heart. I had been a little afraid that because I had been a part of so many weddings as a photographer, I wouldn’t be able to really enjoy my own wedding day. But that didn’t happen. :) I love our wedding, I love our venue and the quirky things we did that weren't really traditional. I love knowing that we were surrounded by people who loved us and knew us, and that we have beautiful pictures to show just that. I love that we chose details that were “us”, from the coffee bar at the reception to the typewriter we used in place of a guest book.

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Because I know there are a lot of you planning weddings right now, I thought I would share five things I wouldn’t change about our wedding day. I want all of our brides to look back on their day with the same love we have for ours, so here are some things to think about as you put the finishing touches on your own!

1. How We Spent Our Budget

When Jimmy and I started planning our wedding, the accountant side of him came out and we set a budget for both the wedding and the honeymoon. Like a lot of couples, we were paying for the majority of it ourselves, so we needed to plan within reason. We talked a bit about our priorities, which were as follows: Photographer, location, wedding apparel, decorations/food. And when we look back at how we spent our budget, it lines up directly with our priorities. We spent the majority on the photographer (about half of our budget, actually) because we both value photography and wanted someone we trusted to capture our day, in a style we loved. The photographer in me knew that location plays such a big part in the pictures as well as the mood of the wedding, so we chose a rustic, outdoorsy venue that we would still be able to use if it rained. The rest of the things weren’t quite as important to us— I got my dress half-off, off the rack, and we got our cake from a local grocery store bakery. :) We had a cake and punch reception, so no caterers or tables and linens were needed.

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I’m not saying this is the way to go for everyone— you may not want an off-the-rack dress, and you may want to feed your guests a meal! But I would recommend making a list of your priorities, and recognizing that what you spend your budget on should line up very closely with your list. I would bet that if you do your research and invest the majority of your time and money in the top few priorities, you are going to be happier down the road with the results!

2. First Look

Jimmy and I decided to see each other before the ceremony, partly so we could take pictures beforehand and not be so rushed, but also because we wanted to spend the whole day together and not just the hours after the ceremony. We only had our photographers present for the first look so it would feel intimate and we wouldn’t feel awkward with an audience, and they captured it so sweetly. We exchanged letters we had written to each other, and Jimmy’s letter was so lovely I had to fight back tears when I read it. We hugged and just took a minute to let everything sink in. It was a beautiful moment that we were able to have, and after that we were hardly apart. We were able to take a little extra time for pictures and didn’t feel too crazy, and now we have those extra tangible memories, too.

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3. Unplugged Wedding

I know this is the photographer in me jumping out, but this is one of the things I definitely recommend to everyone! :) In our programs we had a little area that asked our guests to turn their cameras off and put their phones down, and just enjoy the day. So we do not have any horror stories of guests standing in the middle of the isle to grab that shot for Instagram, and we don’t have pictures of our family with cameras in front of their faces instead of them enjoying the ceremony. (I have been to too many weddings where not only do guests have their phones up, but even fathers and mothers of the bride and groom!) If you are wondering if you should do this or not, please please do! It is so worth it, from a photographer and a fellow bride.

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4. Guest List

We knew we wanted a smaller, more intimate wedding, so we decided to cap it off at 75 people total. This sounded wonderful at first, but as we made our list of guests we realized it is quite difficult to have a small wedding! We had to decide where to draw the line between friends and acquaintances, and that line turned out to be very blurry at times. But we stuck to our guns and kept our list relatively short, and now looking back I am very grateful for that. Our pictures show only our closest friends and family, and we have fond memories with everyone who came. We also didn’t have to spend more of our budget on a bigger cake and more snacks which, again, were not our top priorities. :)

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5. Making it “Us”

One thing I love about our wedding was all the little details that made it “us”. I love acoustic, coffee shop music, so we asked our hipster friend Jared to play some songs on the guitar and sing for the music before the ceremony. We decided to use non-traditional vows, because I had photographed one wedding where the vows really struck me by how beautiful they were, and how Christ-centered they were. That bride and groom graciously let us use them, too. :) We asked my sister’s husband to officiate the wedding, and he even snuck in a Joey from “Friends” wedding quote (the give/receiving one if you are familiar with the show!). We are coffee lovers, so we had a coffee bar at our reception, complete with coffee punch. And of course, we had to incorporate the Tennessee Vols football in there somewhere, so Jimmy wore an orange bow tie and had an orange and white “T” groom’s cake. These little details, and a few others, made a regular wedding a little more “us” without going too crazy.

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I hope this post was helpful to you! In case you were wondering, our photographer was Cheyenne Ward from Shots by Cheyenne, with help from Laci Wilson of Barefeet Photography. We are still so grateful for how they captured our wedding so perfectly! (And thanks ladies for letting me use your pictures in this post!) We chose Soleil Garden Center as our venue, and they went above and beyond for us. I got my dress at Anne’s Bridals in Paducah at their half-off New Year’s Sale, and our cake was from E.W. James. The guys went to Five Seasons for their wardrobe, and we got the bridesmaid dresses at The Whispering Tree. Bouquets and boutonnieres were from Calla Lily.

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Hot Springs Arkansas, Our 2016 Vacation

For our second wedding anniversary we decided to take a trip to Hot Springs Arkansas!

When I was in college I asked two of my professors if they took their cameras with them on vacation. The first said absolutely not, that photography was his job and he needed to unplug from that and just enjoy being away from it all. He grew almost tired of taking pictures all the time, and vacation was his excuse to put the camera away and relax. My other professor said, "Um, of course I take my camera with me!" and even gave himself challenges for his vacation photography-- maybe he would focus on a certain color scheme the whole time, or certain details of the country he was visiting. It was his time to be creative and just take pictures for himself, to enjoy the art of photography for what it was-- his passion.

I feel like I am a mixture of both of my old professors when I go on vacation. Part of me wants to capture every detail, every meal we eat and every beautiful piece of architecture we come across. I want to record it all so we can put it in a book and look back on all our trips someday. I want to be able to remember the smells, the sounds of the water rushing by, or the stillness of walking the streets in the morning, while the crowds are still in bed and the shops are just now starting to open. I'm not a great story teller with my words, but I can show pictures of the delicious cupcakes we ate and the amazing views we came across, and they can relay our traveling adventures for me.

The other side of me, the one who knows my workaholic tendencies, realizes the importance of being present and not spending the whole vacation with a camera in front of my face. I know my husband likes this side better, because I'm not so distracted and preoccupied. :) Though photography is my passion, I understand the need for a Sabbath, for a rest and a little time away from work.

So my vacation photos from this trip are incomplete, in a good way. I didn't take pictures at all at the horse races, or at the spa, and I didn't even get a picture of the most amazing meal we ate in Hot Springs. And who knows if I'll remember those things for the rest of my life, but I do know I was present when they happened, and had a wonderful time just being there. That is my vacation photography tip for you all-- take enough pictures that your creative, sentimental self is satisfied, and then put the camera away to just enjoy your vacation. And maybe that goes for everyday life, too. Be present, be sentimental, take pictures and record your adventures, but find the perfect balance of it all for you. Mix them all in at varying amounts-- it may not be perfect at first but I think we'll all get the hang of it eventually. :)