When I was pregnant with Leo I was as big as a house. Like, HUGE. We did maternity photos in July and a woman stopped me at the beach and asked me when I was due. When I told her October, her jaw dropped and she asked me if I was having twins. From then on I decided to start lying to people about my due date and say “end of the summer”…which was sort of close to the truth. In my eighth month of pregnancy, my doctor sat me down and told me I had to stop gaining weight. Apparently I had already gained fifteen pounds more than she had expected me to gain during the entire pregnancy and was worried about my health. And I really thought about taking her advice to cut back, but I had already promised myself that I’d get some Abbott’s Chocolate Almond on my way back home. After all, the only Abbott’s in Boston happened to be located on my way back from the doctor and it was part of my routine to stop there before I went home. But, that day, because I felt especially bad about myself, I made it a large and followed it up with some Ultimate Cake from Wegman’s (which just happened to be located above my OB’s office.) And I swear, that mean old doctor must have jinxed me in the best way possible because since then, I’ve had maternity clients who look absolutely amazing right up to their last few days of pregnancy just to make me extra embarrassed about my pregnancy gain. Caitlin is one of those girls. She emailed me this summer asking for a maternity session before her baby girl’s October arrival and had no sense or urgency to get the pictures done before she got huge–which could only mean one thing: she looked fabulous. Now this was something I would never have been able to do–I’d rush to get the pictures done months ahead of time so that I would be able to lie to myself when I looked back at the pictures and tell myself I didn’t gain a single ounce more than what was captured in the pictures. But not Caitlin. She was as laid back about the date as laid back can be. We even had to reschedule the photos and said we could do them “whenever”. Whenever! I had to mentally prepare myself to see Caitlin and her perfect little bump before I met up with her because I knew it was going to make me feel extra bad as I thought back to my tubby pregnant self. With only a few short weeks of her pregnancy left to go, Caitlin wore REGULAR non-maternity clothes, and looked nothing short of fabulous. She walked the beach, climbed the rocks–this mama made the third trimester look like a breeze, which, come on, we all know, is not the case at all. And Rich? Her hubby? He was a blast. He was excited as excited could be to become a dad and was very easily entertained by the planes flying over our heads (at ridiculously low altitudes making it feel like they were going to brush the tops of the houses we were near.) But we survived and I think we got some pretty amazing sunset pictures, to top it all off.

Caitlin and Rich love to fish, so we found a great little dock with lots of fishing boats.  The sunset we got was unreal. It was pouring all day and we figured the sun would be no where in sight. Luckily, we were very wrong.
 I think this shot is my favorite. Caitlin looks like some kind of magical pregnant mermaid princess.
 Just look at these two. Wouldn’t you want them as parents?
 Only a few short weeks left until I get to meet that baby girl! I cannot wait!