when my wife said that she wanted photos of the birth, i figured i’d just toss my camera in my bag along with a bunch of snacks and a pillow and snap away when the time came. upon further thought i realized that i may not be in the proper state of being to be worrying about ISO levels and shutter speeds. tara suggested we ask our good friend karissa (of klm photography) to attend and take photos.
“okay” i said, wondering why 1) my wife would want to have someone there taking pictures of such an event, and 2) who in their right mind would want to go photograph such an event for someone else?

i was pretty sure karissa would say no. heck, i would say no if someone asked me to shoot that! on top of being a monumental thing to witness and be a part of, births can take a ton of time and start at all hours of the night. ours ended up being forty-eight hours of labor. forty-eight! not all of those hours were in the hospital, but more than twenty-four of them were. that’s a long day.

karissa said yes.

so strange, i thought to myself. she won’t stay the whole time, that’d be crazy. she’ll probably just swoop in when the pushing starts, akin to shooting the final stages of the girls getting ready before a wedding.

karissa showed up while i was still bringing things in from the car to the hospital. she was there the whole time (except a two hour break to go home and brush her teeth and let her husband know she was still alive). it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened during the birth, besides the birth. she did take awesome pictures without a doubt, but more than that she was there for me to hang with when tara fell asleep, there for me to glance at when things were getting crazy, and there to celebrate the most awesome moment that ever happened to us.

i’m no writer so my words can’t do the situation justice. go check out the photos on karissa’s blog. you may have to scroll down a post or two to find it because i was a slacker in writing this post to link to it.

huge thanks to karissa. thanks to stan too, my good buddy and husband of karissa for letting us borrow her for such a long period of time. also, stan delivered the life-saving pizza at a crucial moment. that was key. i’m not quite sure things would have worked out without that pizza delivery. klm photography