In addition to buying car seats, bassinets, clothes, carriages, thermometers, infant tubs, diapers, mobiles, blankets, toys; thinking of names, going to birthing classes, finding pediatricians and gaming daycare scenarios, another issue is pressing on my harried consciousness – will I take pictures in the delivery room?
Many people, including my wife, think this is a no-brainer. Of course you will! But I’m not so sure.
It has nothing to do with propriety. I wouldn’t dream of snapping pics from the obstetrician’s vantage point. That’s a good way to get choked out by a hormone raging spouse. But do I really want to spend the first seconds of my child’s life, a time that will never come again, trying to figure out the exposure settings on a camera?
I’ve never been one to take pictures. I got a digital camera for Christmas but never used it. Now it sits in megapixel obsolescence in a desk drawer. I’ve also never liked having my picture taken – a fact that aggravates my wife to no end. If you look at snaps of me as a child, I’m withdrawn, even fearful – as if I was some pygmy in the Amazonian jungle fearful the alchemy of light and celluloid would somehow capture a piece of my soul.
As a result, much of my adult life went undocumented. I have few pictures of my time in seminary, vacations went unrecorded and I’ll be damned if I can find a single picture of my time as a waiter. The obvious exception was all the publicity photos and vids when my books came out. For the most part, I’m a figure lurking in the background of other peoples’ photo albums.
My wife, Annie, however, is a ferocious photographer. She owns a very expensive digital camera and can do wonders with Photoshop. Whereas you could stick all the pictures I’ve taken on half a single memory stick, her multi-terabyte collection requires a server farm. She gets the urge to record things, I do not. I guess opposites do attract.
Sure, I’ve taken pictures of my dog, my wife standing on the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, but those are exceptions. When I see something I want to remember I just look at it. I think scrambling for a camera interferes with the memory making process. Today, with camera phones, Instagram, You Tube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Flickr people are photo archiving their lives. Do we really need to take pictures of an entree in a restaurant? Do we need a slick video production of a baby’s first steps complete with a cutesy soundtrack? We’re offloading our memories onto the Internet and, as some studies suggest, we are weakening our natural ability to recall the very memories we seek to capture.
There have been times in my life when I saw something and realized that image would be in my mind until the day I die – a meteor storm while camping in the mountains, a naked girl lying in the moonlight, The Twin Towers burning, my Dad in the recovery room after heart surgery, my dog snoozing in his favorite chair, a woman’s face when I told her I didn’t love her, my wife in her wedding dress, a person dying of AIDS, the skyline of New York shrouded in fog, watching seals play in La Jolla, gondoliers on the Grand Canal, the seductive evening sprawl of Vegas, rocketing down Laurel Canyon Boulevard, my wife running up the street because she was late for our second date, our first kiss, a woman dying in front of me, getting a toy firehouse for Christmas, monks chanting the Hours, a boy I punched, the dark eyes of a violent psychopath, my nephew only an hour old, my friend dying of cancer, eyeball to eyeball with a majestic buck in the forest, Mom making paper hats and the raucous crowd at the first ball game my dad took me to in 1974. All these images and more are seared into my brain, no camera needed.
Of course, people who eschew photography can be as annoying as those media snobs who say they don’t own a T.V. or only watch PBS. I’m well aware of photography’s ability to capture beauty and pathos, to shed light into dark corners and literally change our view of the world. It is an art form to be respected – and something my wife does extremely well. But I wish people would just stop clicking their iPhones for a moment and see reality unadulterated. Enjoy dawn in the Piazza San Marco with your camera in its bag. Give that gustatory delight its privacy. Capture images with your mind – a place where the NSA won’t find them, Facebook can’t sell them and they’re copyrighted with your soul.
Oh don’t worry, they’ll be plenty of pictures of my little girl, but not in her first moment, the font of all her moments to come, Some things are too sacred for pictures.
That moment is just for my wife and me.
Don’t do it. A study which came out recently said that constant picture taking affects memory–that is, that people are so busy taking pictures of events that they actually don’t remember the events themselves. Instead, they rely on the pictures to construct memory.
With all due respect, it’s not about you. The first moments belong to you and Annie equally, but while you’ll remember it for all eternity, she may not. I speak only from my perspective, of course, but out of 5 children, I only have that for the first, and only because I had meds (god bless the epidural. Just sayin’). One was unmedicated and so painful, the first moments are both fuzzy and seared, but I don’t have an image in my head. Two others were c-sec I have zero recall. I didn’t get one ’til she was five, so there’s that:). You said yourself your wife loves recording moments…maybe do this one pic just for her, so she can share this with you in a real way.
Can’t you have it both ways – set up a camera on a tripod and just let it film while you enjoy with the missus?
If you take your camera into the delivery room with you, the nurses often offer to take a shot or two for you. I value those shots more than so many of the others our family members and others got because I, too, was medicated and don’t remember as much as I would like about that time. Two of my favorite shots ever aren’t well composed or wonderful pictures, but they’re still our first-ever family photos. Just a thought. And congratulations to you both!
But do I really want to spend the first seconds of my child’s life, a time that will never come again, trying to figure out the exposure settings on a camera?
No.
But if you want any record, by all means use a camera.
Modern ones will do exposure and focus for you.
If you want the best of both worlds, see if they’ll let you have Someone Else there to take pics of you and her and the new baby.
Not many times I completely disagree with you, but this is one.
You’re memory may be worlds better than mine. Dementia and alzheimers come to mind in a worst case future.
The movie “The Notebook” comes to mind.
And oh, yeah, you may be standing there, smiling from ear to ear as your daughter is born, but your wife will be busy. She may not remember that smile on your face.
Years from now, when your daughter and grandchildren want to see some special moments in their life, I’d like you to share your memories.
Doesn’t get the same reaction…..trust me.
Take crap loads of pictures…..back them up……catalog them in some meaningful way to you.
You will not always be here Steve……your loved ones will want some pictues to remember you by…..and to pass on to heirs yet to be thought of.
You may have the best memory in the world……today…….but there are things to think about and to pass on that don’t exist today.
Merry Christmas!!!
Dennis
2 thoughts for you to ponder:
1 – Compromise. Pick a safe vantage point early in the delivery (a shelf that overlooks your wife’s torso but not lower half perhaps) and set the video camera down there on “record”. You will get a recording of the event and can extract from it all the stills you/she like but since you will not be actively taking said video so you can remain in the moment. (Do look through the view finder long enough to ensure you aren’t accidentally recording the drapes or bed rail.) You can always delete the video later if you change your mind.
2 – Your child’s perspective. Yes, YOU will remember all those things you listed – but can anyone else remember them? Of course not. Think of any treasure family photos you might have – your dad as a boy playing catch, you in your first snowfall ever etc. These are things that the later generations cannot recall but will treasure seeing.
Perhaps your child(ren) would be interested in what they looked like on delivery day.
(It is also possible if you have only a few photos of them they will interpret this as a sign you didn’t care. After all, in an age where people recorded their entrees forever you didn’t even “bother” to record their birth. I’m not saying that’s how you feel of course, but perception and reality rarely mix.)
My husband took photos when my daughter arrived, and those photos of her first minutes are precious. He could move around and see her when I was still in the bed, so for me, the photos showed me the part of her birth story that I didn’t experience directly. There is one particular photo I treasure. There she is, wrinkled and red and crying on a table, and even though she looks like every other newborn, she is making a face that is undeniably hers. And all this time later, when she cries her mouth still curls up the exact same way as it does in the photo. When I see that face now, it makes me catch my breath. It takes me back to those first minutes and it testifies that from the very first seconds of her life, she was already undeniably, unquestionably her. She didn’t learn to cry like that; she emerged a whole, individual person. A hundred years from now I would be able to look at that photo and know without question that it was my baby. Don’t take a thousand photos. But take some.
Hey Steve. I had a planned C section with my son. My husband brought his camera as did my Mom. Mom waited in the family waiting room while my husband held my terrified hand as the doctor cut me open and took our son out of me. Our son’s first pictures were not taken until he was about 15 minutes old because I will remember the experience of bringing our son into the world – hearing the doctor say “Here comes junior and – OW! HE BIT ME!” (true story – he’d done 5000 births and my son was the first to bite him on exit); hearing the doctor say over the mewling of my bloody son peering over the cloth that separated me seeing the operation, “Hi Mommy!”; the look of awe on my husband’s face after they handed him the swaddled baby. Really, you want those first moments to be with Annie experiencing all those roller coaster emotions. Hold her hand. If you have a moment, whip out the point and shoot. But love the moment that you are there with her experiencing your daughter because trust me, the years fly by.
Hey Steve,
The nurses will take some pics for you and later on, your wife will love having a record. Even if you just set up a tripod and let it go from there.
My dad died a few years ago and I am an only child. All I have left are pictures. Someday, all your kid will have left are pictures as well. Do it for her.
I am in two minds as well on this.
On the one hand, I completely agree that the most sacred moments should be experienced not squandered by seeing it only through a camera viewpoint – birth photography / filming is not a thing as yet in the UK and always strikes me as a vaguely grotesque concept…
On the other, previous posters are right in that you will not be able to always rely on memory, and your children certainly won’t be able to.
My family (including myself) have always done family albums etc, and even now I love looking through my own collection of albums. My husband, by contrast, has only about twenty photos of himself from birth till I met him, and deeply regrets not having any “visual aids” to his memory…
So my view is, definite no to photos until baby is born and mum is ready to say cheese, but after that take as many as you can 🙂
I can see both sides of the coin here and both are valid. I think it’s like everything in life and that’s not to overdo things. I’m a keen photographer and love to capture images of special moments, not because I’m one of those who has to snap everything in site, I don’t, but on the other hand the mind has ways of changing what you originally experienced.
I’ve proven this having taken photos of a special event and put those photos ‘somewhere safe’ and when they suddenly appear such as during a clearout, the way I remembered the event visually in my mind was slightly different to the actual photos I had taken all those many years ago.
I do agree with the comments above that the photos will be something for all the family today and for future generations to share, and no, don’t post them on the social media platforms. Make prints from them so they can just be shared privately among the family.
For the techie part, just use a simple, but good quality point-and-shoot camera, one where you don’t have to mess around with all those fancy settings. Leave it on Auto and it should do a perfectly good job, and quickly so you can also enjoy the experience.
Best Wishes
Philip
You have a vivid memory, and it works for you. Photos are not necessary. But as others have pointed out, your memory may not work as well for you in 30 years.
That said, all your points are valid. I see people so busy recording their experiences that they don’t actually have them. So I propose a compromise. Take the camera. Experience it all. And when it’s all over and the baby’s in her arms and they’re making noises about wheeling the two of them out, _then_ take the picture: a nice one, all framed up right and proper. Maybe two. That’s it. And you’ll have what you need to remember at a later date should memory ever fade. And your wife will smother you with kisses because you made her look good.
You have a vivid memory, and it works for you. Photos are not necessary. But as others have pointed out, your memory may not work as well for you in 30 years.
That said, all your points are valid. I see people so busy recording their experiences that they don’t actually have them. So I propose a compromise. Take the camera. Experience it all. And when it’s all over and the baby’s in her arms and they’re making noises about wheeling the two of them out, _then_ take the picture: a nice one, all framed up right and proper. Maybe two. That’s it. And you’ll have what you need to remember at a later date should memory ever fade. And your wife will smother you with kisses because you made her look good.
as the OB. One of ours had a nurse take Polaroids and give them to us. We didn’t worry about it. Polaroids are out now, but you could get a cheap digital camera and get a nurse to do it so you’re not worried about it. Frankly, though, with all 5 of our kids, those photos are not that important.
I have been away too long- many, many congratulations in advance on your impending entry into Fatherhood! Yep, it’s a capital “F.” Keep blogging if you can and yes, I didn’t read everything about the photos but delivery room stuff is so just a flake in the snow at the tip of the iceberg of life changes you’ll experience. Hand over a terabyte to kid photos for the first 6 years or so- it’s what we all do now.
Can’t wait to read the “after.” Yep, yours. I mean it. It changes your life- always! Best wishes for a safe, textbook simple delivery and pregnancy to your wife as she brings baby out to the world. I truly didn’t mean to spam you this way but… I did manage to share my own tips for motherhood this year. It’s here: http://offbeatfamilies.com/2013/08/tips-for-unmedicated-childbirth
The key thing for after is: an ocean surf CD and burrito wrap them up tight. It takes a few weeks for their tummies to learn the new way of eating. It’s common for there to be lots of crying at the outset.
Happy New Year!
A less faithful than she would like to admit reader/Mom (I did buy the book though, I’m not all bad). 🙂
rachel
Took me a while to catch up. But great article, fully agree!