For Photographers: Navigating a Pregnancy Loss as a Wedding & Portrait Photographer
When I was miscarrying in the middle of wedding season, I felt deeply and incredibly alone.
I searched high and low for advice online as we processed the loss, but found nothing. There were plenty of bubbly blog posts written by photographers proudly shooting weddings at nine months pregnant ("just wear comfortable shoes! and drink your water!") but I couldn't find one article, one blog post, one social media mention of how to cope with the loss of a pregnancy when your livelihood centers on capturing other families' happiest moments. In an industry where so many of us strive for "authenticity," I couldn't understand for the life of me why it felt like I was the only one whose story didn't have the happy ending I saw playing out time and time again on social media.
And so here's the post I wished someone had written for me during those days. If you're having a miscarriage and you're a wedding and family photographer, here are some of the things that helped me the most through the weeks and months we spent navigating our losses.
Check with your doctor If you think you might be having a miscarriage, nothing you ever read on the internet will ever replace informed, personal, medical advice. Most importantly, not everyone realizes that there are many different kinds of miscarriages, and that depending on how far along the pregnancy has progressed, medical intervention may be required for the health of the mother. As a photographer in particular, and depending on your personal situation, your doctors may recommend that you not lift more than a certain amount of weight (which might influence what kind of gear you're able to use while shooting), limit your physical activity (which can influence how long you might be able to shoot for), or even recommend bed rest (which could require you to find a replacement for scheduled shoots). If you think you might be having a miscarriage, be sure to check with your OBGYN before photographing a wedding or carrying heavy gear during a shoot.
Set boundaries for yourself Right after we miscarried I had two family portrait sessions on my calendar--each featuring a new baby. These were both past clients (whom I loved, and was of course so happy for), so I knew I didn't want to cancel their sessions or have an associate photographer step in for me. I hadn't yet shared news of our loss online, so they didn't know what we were navigating and I was actually glad to have a distraction to keep my mind from wandering too much. When the day came, we were able to make beautiful photographs together and it was wonderful to see them again and help them to celebrate such a special time in their lives, but the grief I felt afterwards was overwhelming.
While I knew I couldn't reschedule the remaining weddings I had on my calendar that year, I didn't at the time have any additional family sessions scheduled and decided to give myself the permission to take a step back from family portraits for the time being especially when they featured small children. I referred inquiries to other photographers & allowed myself the time I needed to process my loss and grieve privately. Financially I know that I was only able to take this step of turning down sessions because the majority of my business income is from wedding days and engagement sessions, so for me personally it wasn't a huge sacrifice to press pause on family sessions. For photographers whose sole focus is the maternity/newborn/family industry, this could be a completely untenable move unless you're able to take time off from their photography work all together, but there are still steps you can take to care for your mental health even if you can't stop photographing sessions all together. (i.e. outsourcing editing so that you don't have to spend additional hours with images that might be painful for you to edit).
Unplug from social media Stepping away from instagram while I grieved was one of the best things I was able to do for myself when I miscarried. I came back shortly after, but I can still remember the first time I saw a pregnancy announcement on instagram after we miscarried, and the heartache that came with it. If it's possible for you and your business practices, take time to unplug from Instagram, Facebook, etc. however long you may need t0--whether it's a day, a week or a year. When you do return to social media, it may still feel like a minefield of pregnancy and birth announcements, that can easily catch you off guard, so give yourself the grace and compassion you deserve when you feel sad, angry or hopeless when you see other happy endings play out on your screens.
Outsource where you can While I was miscarrying I was still incredibly nauseated from the pregnancy hormones, and even a little time at the computer left me feeling ill--so I made the choice to outsource my wedding editing while I was still managing physical symptoms of our loss. In hindsight I wish I had also had thought to hire a virtual assistant (VA) to help me manage client communication and leads while I was grieving, because in the end the time I took away from the computer meant I lost out on valuable leads for my business, and thus future income. Ultimately I was able to book a solid enough season for the following year that it didn't impact the health of the business too severely, but it was anything but a banner year for MSP financially (largely though, due to the fact that our third pregnancy was quite complicated and required me to hire assistants and outsource again for another season, all out of pocket.)
When you're ready, find your village I've always heard it said that it takes a village to raise a baby, but in my own experience, I've also learned that it takes a village when you lose one too--and it's not always easy at first to find it. I was incredibly lucky during my miscarriages that through my work within the loss community I already knew dozens of women who could relate to what I was going through. When I shared the news of our loss on instagram, they responded instantly--some sent flowers and cards, others care packages, and one dear friend arrived on our porch the following day with lasagna and hugs. I even received a phone call from a friend who lived thousands of miles away, who knew that I would just need someone to sit with me in my grief, and she talked with me while I cried and shared our story.
The love, compassion and support my husband and I were shown as we grieved was incredible and I don't know how I would have navigated those weeks without so much help--but I know that this type of community doesn't always exist for everyone, or even if it does, you might not feel ready right away to lean on others while you grieve.
Maybe you don't feel comfortable sharing publicly about your loss because it was early and worry people will think you're overreacting, or because you chose to terminate for medical reasons and fear being judged. Maybe you don't know of any friends or family members who've experienced a similar loss, and don't know how to begin a conversation, or maybe you just can't talk about it now and prefer to keep your loss private.
If you don't feel you have anyone to talk to in person, or just don't feel comfortable talking just yet (or ever!) another "village" that was an amazing resource for me during my miscarriages was the one I found online. There are dozens of online communities where women and men share their stories, offer advice about how they've made it through their hardest days, and plenty of snarky replies to offer up when someone inevitably makes an offhandedly thoughtless comment. Some of the online accounts that I found that I still follow to this day on intagram are:
@jenniemonologues (the writer behind The Uterus Monologues)
@ihadamiscarriage (a psychologist who has written so much about miscarriage after her own loss and does so much work to destigmatize the experience)
Give yourself grace and time to grieve Grief takes time, and sometimes it takes a lot of time. There's no quick fix for processing grief, so if there's one note I can leave you with while you navigate these days, it's this: be compassionate with yourself and know that as alone as you might feel, you are not alone.
Being a wedding or family portrait photographer who's in the business of capturing joyful celebrations for other families can easily leave you feeling like you can't grieve, and can't share about your loss. Because who will want to hire the sad wedding photographer, right? It's not limited to loss and grieving--we don't get sick days or personal days in our business. Weddings don't get rescheduled when our life gets hard, but as selfish as it might seem for us to even think it, it can feel completely unfair to have to pick yourself up, grab a camera and put on a happy face when it's the last thing in the world you might want to do that day. Some days it can even feel impossible.
What can make this experience even more difficult to navigate too is the fact that grief is not linear. I've spoken with women, some mothers and grandmothers many times over, who years later still cry when describing their experiences with loss. This isn't to say that we will inevitably grieve forever, but simply to act as a reminder that we might have good days, and we might have bad days. We might have days where we're able to shop for baby shower presents happily, and we might have days where even after we thought we were "done" grieving, an unexpected pregnancy announcement from a friend can bring all of the pain and sadness rushing back. Try to be patient with yourself in these moments, and know that grief is a process, and is experienced differently by every one. It's not an event that has a timeline, and it's not a task that can be checked off a list.
As much as I wish I had the answers, there's no one size fits all answer here. In the end, for me though, as much as preparing for those work days seemed utterly surreal--to be doing something so normal when something so horrible was happening in my life--it did bring me some peace. It wasn't easy, but taking time to step outside of my grief, to be around happy people when I was in such pain was a beautiful reminder of how much joy there is in the world. It reminded me that one day, I wouldn't feel as hopeless and lost as I did in that moment.
And so I took those days to pause in my grief. I took a few hours to laugh and to smile and to celebrate with my couples, because I knew that one day happiness would find me again. It didn't "fix" how I was feeling, it didn't erase the pain I felt, and it didn't make me forget what we had experienced, but those days spent outside of myself and outside of my grief helped me to make sense of my new reality, and embrace the uncertain future we were facing.