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Welcome to our blog! We are a husband & wife photography team based in Madison, Wisconsin who document weddings & anniversaries for joyful couples who believe in marriage. This blog is a journal about real love stories, marriage & our own adventures along the way. We are so glad you're here — please stay awhile!

MAISON      CALEB

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LIFESTYLE

Signing Off | Welcoming Home Baby Engel.

January 13, 2021

I’m not exactly sure when this post will get published as I’m writing it a bit ahead of time (just in case!), but the moment it does, we are officially signing off of the blog for a bit … for our maternity/paternity leave! I cannot believe we are at this point in the pregnancy, time feels like it has absolutely flown by. I guess that’s what being a foster parent, living during a global pandemic, trying to keep your small business afloat (among other personal things sprinkled in along the way!) will do to the concept of time … HA!

The remainder of this post will share a bit more about what pregnancy has looked like for me/us and I definitely acknowledge some readers will not be interested in that content, so I’m going to keep it separate from this initial part announcing our time off. I will eventually be answering emails a couple of times per week and posting on Instagram as I feel led, so I will certainly still be “reachable.” We just also want to give this long-awaited season of bringing our daughter home the very sacred and special time and attention it deserves <3

As I could never possibly say too much: thank you for your unending support as we walk into this next season. It means more than we could EVER properly express in words. We are SO grateful for you. See you soon : ) We can’t wait for you to meet our daughter!!!!

maternity-leave

If you are new here or you are unfamiliar with our pregnancy story, I would highly recommend reading this blog post first. We struggled to conceive for two and a half years, and this pregnancy is an absolute miracle to us. Because of our experience, pregnancy is a complicated and sensitive topic for me, one I sincerely pray I am always able to discuss with love and compassion, being quick to listen and slow to speak.

We found out we were pregnant in April, a month after receiving our first foster placement of a very special 5-month-old little girl. We were in the beginning stages of the pandemic, quite stressed about the future of our small business, and navigating parenthood for the very first time. I was fairly sick, mostly experiencing extreme fatigue and daily nausea.

It was definitely a challenging three months, though what I remember most is how difficult it was to truly accept and be “all-in” with excitement about being pregnant. I anticipated I would have some anxiety around potential loss, complications, the health of the baby, etc., but I had no idea how strong and all-consuming that anxiety would be. I shared a bit more about this part of my experience in this Instagram post, but I will just say that it was much more of a “dark” time emotionally that I ever could have imagined.

As the pregnancy progressed, I started feeling better/more like “myself” and we continued to receive good news about the baby. This helped the anxiety to lessen and I eventually got to a point where the excitement significantly outweighed the fear. I think this happened around the start of the third trimester. I am so, SO thankful and deepy recognize how lucky we are to be experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy. While there have been many challenges of being pregnant during COVID, I have been allowing myself to take the time I need to properly grieve each one, but then ultimately land in a place with my eyes fixed on all there is to be grateful for. As I now sit at the end of this season, just days away from our due date, I can reflect back on my experience with an overwhelming sense of joy and thankfulness.

To conclude, I thought I would end with something super light-hearted and fun. I am more of a “minimalist” so this list isn’t long (like, at ALL), but here are my pregnancy “must-haves”! Again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your love, support, and excitement for us as we enter this new season. We are incredibly grateful, beyond excited, and absolutely cannot wait to continue sharing our growing family with you! All my love, Maison <3

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