Top Ten: Pregnancy in Pictures

When I was pregnant with Alex, Rusty faithfully took pictures of my expanding belly every four weeks. With Stephen and Benjamin, we managed official belly-shots a grand total of 3 times per pregnancy. And we didn’t take any pictures of my belly when I was pregnant with Elizabeth, unless you count a selfie that I took one morning. I guess by the fourth time around, I was just SO OVER being pregnant! Not to mention that we were just so stinkin’ busy that we didn’t have time to even think about taking belly-shots.

However, we probably have more nice pictures of me pregnant with Elizabeth than we have of me pregnant with any of the boys. How is this possible, you ask, since we didn’t take any ourselves? It was all thanks to my doctor, who took pictures of me at every prenatal check-up. When I first found out I was pregnant, my sister referred me to the clinic she had used with her fourth baby, La Clinica Primavera. It was such a lovely, peaceful place, and we were both so impressed with it, especially after our last experience having Benjamin in a huge, public hospital in Portugal, that we decided to continue with our plans to have the baby there, even after we moved out to Tabacundo, an hour and a half away. The doctor, Dr. Alarcón, is a big proponent of natural childbirth and even offers waterbirths at his clinic, very unusual in Ecuador. The clinic walls are covered with beautiful portraits of pregnant women and moms with their newborn babies, all of which he took. I think his first love is maternity and birth photography and he became an OB in order to give himself an automatic clientele!

At Elizabeth’s 8-day check-up, I was given a CD with all the pictures he had taken of me during the pregnancy. (The CD also included pictures and a video of the birth, but not to worry, I will not be sharing any of that here!) Here are the 10 best shots from my pre-natal appointments:

12 weeks

15 weeks

21 weeks

25 weeks

30 weeks

33 weeks

35 weeks

37 weeks

38 weeks

39 weeks (Elizabeth was born the day after this photo was taken.)