Photo Credit: Teschka Takes Pictures
By Karen Holt, Campaign Photographer & Guest Writer
It’s often said that the beauty is in the details. A beautiful sentiment that often passes us buy – in the hardship of the moment. It’s easy to feel the exhaustion, the blocked ducts, not enough milk, too much milk, the pain, the pumping… Of course we always look back and think, yes it was hard; but I did it. But here’s the thing.
The beauty lies not in the moments of perfection. It’s the imperfect moments that bring us the most beauty.
I had this realisation when I spent hours sitting and feeding my newborn daughter. Every little part of her seemed perfect and beautiful and out of this world. But as I stared at her perfect little face I realised that it wasn’t quite symmetrical. It was imperfect.
Her lips, at first glance so pink and perfect were actually curved in unobvious places that made me want to kiss them forever. And her eyes, so big and all knowing, were slightly different shapes. But the astounding beauty I saw in the asymmetry of it all made my heart pound.
Sometimes we have an idea of what breastfeeding should look like.
Karen Holt Photography
Cue: Relaxed mama cuddling tiny baby in the classic nursing hold feeding her baby to sleep. Instead my son liked to do anything but. He wanted to feed in strangely contorted positions and would often finish feeding awake and want to be put in his cot awake while he took care of the falling asleep part by himself.
That was his way and it made me realise it never looks like how you think it will and there’s beauty in that. They are not perfect but there's so much wonder in those moments.
We might remember to capture our children's milestones - one month, six months, one year and Christmas but most of us forget to capture our breastfeeding moments. Time passes by, we are busy, life hurtles on.
Somehow we think it’s not important because in the day to day we don’t see the beauty of it.
But the thing is when we look back, we can see that it was beautiful in all of its intricacies. Of course, there were good days and bad days, exhausting days and seemingly unending nights...
But there were moments of magic.
Karen Holt Photography
A tiny fist resting on your chest,
a little hand grasping at your hair,
a finger pushing into your lips, growing
feet nestled against your arms,
or simply your breaths slowly echoing each others.
These imperfect moments will be treasured memories
Just as your baby puts their little hand in yours while they’re feeding, they also place that imperfect beauty in your heart and you will carry it with you a lifetime.
