The First Trip Around The Sun:
Sharing Our Daughter’s First 52 Weeks With Her Birthmom

By Sara S., Celebrate Adoption Cincinnati member and mother one daughter by adoption

Where I discovered the idea, I don’t recall. But a mere seven days after our daughter Naomi’s birth, I suddenly remembered through the newborn-induced/sleep-deprived fog that I wanted to take an “official” weekly photograph of her.

Of course, as new parents, my husband and I were already taking what seemed like a zillion photos a day. But, as our first—and likely only—child it seemed suddenly crucial to stop and document her growth progress in a more formal fashion.

Plus, ringing in my ears was the comment from our daughter’s birthmother, C., watching me frantically snapping away with my camera as she and her family passed the baby around to say their good-byes. We were in a birthing room in the Dayton hospital where C. had delivered Naomi 72 hours earlier. She had just signed the papers terminating her rights and had brought some of her family for support.

“I’m glad you’re taking so many pictures Sara,” she said sagely. “They grow up so fast and you’ll be glad you have them to look back at.” I figured C. knew what she was talking about. She was already parenting two sons.

“Send me copies of those,” she asked. “I’d love to have them.”

“No worries,” I murmured, thinking ahead to the open adoption we were planning to pursue with C., but nonetheless seizing the opportunity to photograph Naomi with her birthfamily just in case we somehow lost that connection. “You’ll have more pictures than you know what to do with,” I assured her.

Taking the pictures

To make the weekly photos official—and to differentiate them from the 7,432 random snapshots (to date) that I’ve taken of our girl—I included a little sign noting the day and how many weeks old she was. To make it easier to see how much she’d grown, I placed a small glass shell in each shot, too.

So began a weekly ritual. Every Sunday, I’d pull out the shell and the sign-of-the-week (I got all sophisticated and typed up a few month’s worth in advance), and plop them next to her for the photo.

It was really easy at first. For the initial six months, Naomi didn’t notice the shell or the sign. Heck, for the first four weeks or so, she didn’t really seem to notice the enthusiastic mommy wielding the camera either. But, by week six, I was getting massive and consistent grins.

Weeks seven through 13 brought a lot of kicking and wiggles. Week 16 was Easter, and Naomi wore a special dress and hat for the occasion. On Father’s Day, at exactly 26 weeks old, Naomi shimmied into her first swimsuit and had her first dip in a pool.

A week later, she discovered the paper sign above her head, and the challenge became photographing her before she could stuff it in her mouth. As she grew, she figured out how to grab the shell, her feet and the camera, then to rollover, sit up, and—finally—crawl away from me, giggling gleefully.

A few weeks into this photojournalistic undertaking, I decided that I’d make two sets of photo albums just of these photos. One for myself, and one for C. Every few weeks I sent her stacks of random snapshots of Naomi, and she always told me during occasional phone and letter exchanges how tickled she was to receive them.

“This way, I know she’s alright,” she’d tell me. “Seeing how beautiful and happy she is helps me know that the adoption was the right thing for her, and that I picked the right parents.”

Tucking photos into C.’s set of albums, all I could think about was how surprised she’d be to receive them. I purposely didn’t tell her about my little project so as not to ruin the surprise. I was pretty excited about how the albums were turning out.

Sharing with birthmom

It was only as December 2009 rolled around, and Naomi posed for her last three photo sessions in her first trip around the sun, that I started to get nervous about C.’s reaction—particularly as Naomi’s birthday and the Christmas holidays drew near. “What if she’s still grieving? What if seeing a year of what she missed makes it worse?”

Compounding my new anxieties, we didn’t hear from C. on Naomi’s birthday. She didn’t call me. I didn’t call her out of concern that it might make her sad or upset on what was bound to be an emotional time. Ditto for Christmas Day. A silent night—and day—for both our phones. It was agonizing.

With my heart in my throat, I carefully wrapped her copies of the albums (which had grown from one to two with the sheer volume of weekly photos I’d amassed) and mailed them to her a few days after Christmas. I tucked a note in the box that said, “I took your advice about lots of photos, and I’m so glad I did. When I flip through these, it reminds me of what an incredible gift you’ve given us, how much I love her, and how fast she’s grown—and it makes me cry (but in a good way). Thank you so much.”

A few days into the New Year I summoned up the courage to call C. Her phone went straight to a generic “this number is no longer in service” message. My face hit my hands. My anxieties tripled. Determined to keep our end of the open adoption agreement, I continued to mail her random snapshots every few weeks.

Finally, more than two months later, C. called and left a perky voicemail on my cell. Turns out, she had been busy with the holidays, school, her kids, a lost cell phone, and a move to a new home—and she now had time to reconnect and catch up.

Overwhelmed with relief, I quickly called her back. Among other things, she said the words that I’d hoped most to hear: “Thank you so much for those albums of her weekly pictures. I was so surprised, and it made me cry, but in a good way,” she reassured me. “It was the best Christmas present I got.”

“You’re sure? Because when it came time to send them, I started to worry that maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do,” I pressed.

“I love it; it’s perfect,” she said. “It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, really.” And a weight was lifted, I think, from both of us.

The second trip around the sun

I’ve switched my weekly project to monthly now. Naomi’s a toddler in every way, and corralling her once a month for a “formal” photo session is about all we both can handle. Of course, C. gets her own set of prints to add to the empty pages in the back of her second album.

As the months put more distance between the present and my first year of mommyhood, I find myself flipping through Naomi’s weekly albums more often than I thought I would. Her zany expressions make me laugh. The dramatic changes from drowsy infant to rambunctious toddler make me misty, and somewhat nostalgic for how quickly those days really did pass.

Mostly, the photos remind me of how far both C. and I have come in our own journeys over the first 365 days and beyond—measured by the growth of a beautiful little girl we are both grateful to call our own.

It was a good trip around the sun.