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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

No newborn photos

21 replies

Bowbells7 · 14/08/2020 09:27

I see so many photos online now when people give birth. I presume because everyone has a camera phone nowadays.
I don't have any photos of my children when they were first born. I have photos from a day old or so but now I feel like I should have had a record of what they looked like when they popped out.
My husband says he doesn't care as he remembers every second of their births.
Aibu to be moaning about this, seeing as I can't go back in time and do it all again 🤔😁

OP posts:

peachpuppy · 14/08/2020 09:34

Nothing wrong with a little desire for nostalgia! If it gives you any comfort, sometimes my memories get totally replaced by a still image of that photo rather than the event itself, particularly in early childhood. Plus, if any grandkids are coming along at any point (?) you can take a million photos then! x

Original poster

Bowbells7 · 14/08/2020 15:56

True. That's if my offspring ever get round to it!

OP posts:

RedHelenB · 14/08/2020 15:57

That why I like the much maligned Bounty photographer!

Namechange6005 · 14/08/2020 16:01

How old are your kids? If they were born when we didn't have camera phones yabu if you did then yabu because circumstances don't always allow a perfect photo opportunity.

Original poster

Bowbells7 · 14/08/2020 19:45

The youngest is 12. We didn't have a camera phone when they were born.

OP posts:

KitKatastrophe · 14/08/2020 19:47

All the photos of mine as a true newborn are rubbish anyway. A darkened hospital room apparently makes for quite blurred photos, and I look an absolute state in all the ones with me in of course. The ones from when they are a few days old are much nicer.

TheFormerPorpentinaScamander · 14/08/2020 19:49

Didn't you have a camera? I've got pictures of my dc who are older than 12. Not taken "when they popped out' but we were still in the delivery suite. I guess its a shame but you can't change it now. And they won't have looked any different 24 hours after birth so no harm done in that sense.

PleasantVille · 14/08/2020 19:52

Why weren't you able to take photos with a camera? My eldest was born before smartphones as we're most of my friends children, we still took lots of pictures in the hospital.

itsamadmadworld · 14/08/2020 20:05

I think it's understandable to be nostalgic, and want a keepsake of such an important event. But I barely look at the pictures of my baby when she was just born, I prefer the ones from when the swelling had gone down and she looks more like herself. Bit insensitive of your husband to say he doesn't mind cos he remembers though as you were drugged up and/or in pain so you won't remember as clearly. I certainly don't despite my daughters dad remembering it all, I actually remember the room more clearly than her being placed on me!

CMOTDibbler · 14/08/2020 20:07

My ds was whipped straight off to SCBU, so I only have a picture of him that they took of him with all the tubes in from the first day for me to see him (and its a photo of a polaroid). And none at all with us and him till he was over a week old as I didn't get to take him out of the incubator at times when there was someone to take a photo

Fatted · 14/08/2020 20:09

I don't particularly like the photos of my kids when they had just popped out. To be honest, it was a reminds me too much of the circumstances that they were born in. I had two c-sections.

I have nice ones of them that were posed, after they got cleaned up and put in a cute little costume. I look terrible in them all though!

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 14/08/2020 20:30

I've got photos of my daughter from the day she was born. I dont like them, because she was prem and they had the NG tube and vapotherm prongs in almost instantly.

My favourite photo is a few days later when she yanked out the NG tube and I got to see her without it for the first time.

Kaiserin · 14/08/2020 21:20

YABU. Live for the present and future, the past is over, and quite frankly, sometimes it just holds us back and ties us down (be it the memorabilia we regret not having or keeping, or the ones we do have, and just clog up our attic)

You don't need to save backups of every seconds of your children's lives. Give them a hug, look at them smile. Here they are
(note: if this was a child you lost, and had no pictures of all, it would be a very different story, obviously)

Elasticate · 14/08/2020 21:38

I understand the feeling and my dc was born into a world of smartphones!

I had an emergency c-section and we didn't have our phones in theatre or recovery and by the time we got back to the ward, I was so exhausted, I honestly didn't think of it (had been awake for more than 24 hours at that point) so I don't have one of me and dc post-birth.

It does make me a bit sad when I think about it but when I look back at photos of him in the first couple of days, he was all bloated up and really looked nothing like himself.

I remember everything about his birth really clearly so I'm happy with my memories.

Original poster

Bowbells7 · 14/08/2020 21:54

I remember the births very clearly. I think we just forgot to take the camera to the hospital for the younger ones. I like Kaiserin's post about clogging up the attic 🙄😏

OP posts:

TheSoapyFrog · 14/08/2020 21:56

I'm glad someone took a picture after my emergency c-section because I was so exhausted, terrified and drugged up that I don't remember any of it.

Mammabear23 · 14/08/2020 22:07

I'm the photo taker so I only have photos of my firstborn at a couple hours old on the hospital bed after I'd changed her. And one with her Daddy. Second birth was my twins born premature and after my husband had had about 2 hours kip. I managed a quick, dazed kiss on the heads of my boys before the drs had to give them oxygen etc etc then they were whisked off to NICU. I didn't see them for another 4 hours. And only got my first cuddle with them about a week after they were born. So no post birth photos then either. It does make me a little sad. But I do have a squillion selfies with them in the following few months :)

bashcrashfall · 14/08/2020 22:16

I don't have photos of when they first popped out.

I also didn't hold either of them first as I was being stitched up both times, first time for ages as I was in surgery after a c-section. And quite high on meds, no space in brain for taking photos.

user5656 · 14/08/2020 22:17

I was born in the mid sixties and the first photos of me was at my christening when I was 4 weeks old!

TheChosenTwo · 14/08/2020 22:23

I think I’ve got pics of dc1 and 3 when they were tiny newborns all covered in gunk but not dc2. Dh is not very handy with a camera and I was a bit busy to be issuing photography instructions as much as he was a bit busy being worried/stressed/excited etc so c’est la vie really (have I butchered that?!).
To be honest, every photo ever taken of them after that has been taken by me because he doesn’t ever think to take pictures of them. And very few pictures of me anywhere with them because I’m the one who takes the pictures!!
Oh well; they’ll have memories of me when I’m gone
Yanbu to wish you had those gunky photos of them now but as you say, you can’t go back in time to change it so there’s nothing you can do about it now!!

welshweasel · 14/08/2020 22:25

I have a photo of my first as he was literally coming out of my abdomen. My second I don’t have any for the first few hours!

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