The Home Stretch– Reflections on These Last Few Weeks of Pregnancy
The Home Stretch– Reflections on These Last Few Weeks of Pregnancy | Third Trimester Pregnant Blog | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
The Home Stretch
I didn’t realize what a mindf*** being 37+ weeks pregnant would be…
It’s kind of like this: I wake up in the morning and think to myself, ‘I could have a baby today’. I also think to myself, ‘It also could be another 4 or 5 weeks before we have this baby’. For someone who prefers structure and control, that’s a lot of variability.
On the other hand, I do feel grateful to technically have made it to “term” at all, considering that at 32 weeks we had a very legitimate scare when my body started showing signs of potential preterm labor and we had our first taste of things-could-go-wrong this pregnancy. Luckily, after a solid step back from working full-throttle and some much needed TLC, literally all of those physical symptoms reversed themselves (bodies are crazy).
So I am–pregnant AF– and waffling between still loving it and being over the whole thing. I had a good run of feeling pretty invincible and healthier than I have ever been, but this home stretch is REAL. By the time the sun goes down, which unfortunately is super early these days, I’m getting pretty crippled. My lower back tightens up, the baby begins assaulting my organs, occasionally getting a foot hooked under a rib, and no amount of cat-cows seem to do the trick anymore.
If I drop something and I can’t pick it up with my toes, it stays there. I now use the old lady bar to get my ass out of the bathtub. No-shave-November applied for most of my body. December doesn’t seem to be an exception. I have like four pieces of clothing that still fit me and two of them belong to my husband. In a nutshell, I’m not cute. But then I step back and also realize that this is probably the most beautiful I’ll ever be. I told you it’s a mindf***.
Terrence is good at grounding me even through the most sophisticated mind/body tricks that I can play on myself. “None of this was a guarantee” has become a bit of a mantra in our house, and that’s a pretty sobering reality, even for someone who has been sober for the last nine months. He’s right though, it was only two years ago that we were in the midst of the ectopic pregnancy and having all-too-real conversations with our doctors about how complicated it might be to have a future healthy pregnancy.
When I ruptured two Decembers ago, I didn’t just lose the baby but I also lost one of my tubes and a lot of blood. I gained a mess of scar tissue and was left with a lot of “time will tell” answers. We couldn’t have known it at the time, but I would end up getting pregnant again from the tubeless side (remember when I said bodies are crazy!?) which is crazy. My dominant ovary is my right one, and miraculously my left tube was able to haul over to the other side, scoop up an egg, and drop it off in the right place. Mind blowing, right??
Now, here we are, in the thick of this mess that is 2020, and also in one of the most beautiful seasons of our lives. The days are slower than they have been in a long time, and while I busybody myself with organizing our drawers and turning our freezer into a soup kitchen, we have also been able to spend guilt-free evenings tucked up on the couch together just savoring the fact that we’re in this space together.
Sometimes timing is perfect and tonight my dear friend Lindsey just sent me an article on this time of “Zwichen”, the in-between dimension of existence that is late pregnancy. Putting a name to this transition period is surprisingly helpful, and quells a lot of the questioning about whether other women feel the same push-pull of living within two worlds at once.
Everything feels like a contradiction and I’m learning to be okay with that. Falling asleep last night, I was staring at the mound that is my belly thinking how foreign my body looks and feels, and yet being more at home in myself than I ever have. How does that make sense? “Pay attention to that feeling”, Lindsey told me, assuring me of the role this feeling plays in labor.
There’s a heaviness and a lightness to these days. A sense of anticipation and peace at the same time. Wanting to work and be still run our biz like a boss but also wanting to nest and be home and hunkered down. Trusting in the journey but also wondering WTF is going to happen. So much that feels contradictory but necessary. It is hard to label what this transitory time truly feels like, so I’ll just still to “Zwichen” and leave the rest to the cosmos.
Photography: Mostly cell pics with a few gems by Lindsey Eden &. Lauren Wright
Will I Still Be Grinding When I Turn 68?
Will I Still Be Grinding When I Turn 68? | Reflections on Retirement and Planning For Your Happiness | Apollo Fields
As I was picking up some lunch before shooting a wedding, the woman at the register asked a regular customer how everything has been since he wasn’t in the restaurant for about a week or so. He replied with a generic, “oh good”, then paused, “okay, I guess. I mean, things could be better”.
She was an older woman and unabashedly asked him, “How old are you?”
He goes, “Sixty eight. I’m getting old”.
She sort of snickered, “Sixty eight isn’t old… These are the best days of your life. The hard work is over. You can be retired and enjoy your life now”.
The man looks back, “I am retired. But not the way I want to be. Things didn’t really work out the way I thought”. Some silence continues before he tries to turn it into a joke again, “The only people who think I am young now— no offense— are old women”.
They laughed. She handed over his change, and he left.
It was a short conversation between two almost-strangers, acquaintances at best. But so much was said between the melancholy sadness and authentic laughter. The surface level lesson here is perspective: the “older” woman is envious of the “younger” man, although he no longer views himself as young.
On the deeper level, you have a man who is experiencing some sort of disappointment in a life that he views is past his peak. Things didn’t really work out the way I thought.
Damn dude.
I was a silent observer in this interaction, but couldn’t help wonder what their lives must be like. Could this be me someday? I’ve been thinking about retirement a lot from a practical, financial perspective but have spent less time planning for my own happiness. I sort of wove it into my career path and tend to consider it a given; given that things work out.
But what if they don’t? Nobody plans on being a callous surly crank by 68, right, we all envision ourselves on an Adirondack chair on the front porch of their house watching the sun set, holding hands with their spouse, surrounded by dogs. Lots and lots of dogs… (Or is that just me?)
Here it goes: THINGS MIGHT NOT WORK OUT. Or at least, they might not look the way they we originally envisioned. There’s a good chance that at 68, I’ll be grinding just as hard as I am now, cleaning up horse shit after dark, behind on emails, and beating myself up for not being good enough at something. I might never shake some of my own demons, and that’s okay.
Our culture is moving away from the retirement lifestyle that many of our baby booming predecessors are currently enjoying. We’re not going straight into the work force from high school and college is no longer a luxury, but an expensive prerequisite to a minimum wage job. We’re not buying houses at 23 years old and we’re not having 2.5 kids by 30. It’s just not happening.
We are paying student loans and we are negotiating multiple careers. A lot of people—like myself—are saying ‘no’ to the 9-5 commuter life in search of something that feels more sustainable, and ideally, has more meaning to us. If this “works out” for me, it will hopefully ensure some sort of happiness and sustainability that will be more fulfilling than my IRA alone and maybe keep me from bitching about my old haunts to a cashier at my lunch joint. Fingers crossed.
Photography: Apollo Fields
Location: Long Beach, NY
Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
August 13, 2019
As we conclude another busy stretch that included: a wedding near the artsy town Hudson in upstate NY, a studio collaboration in Philly with a badass industry professional and friend, Dylan Crossley, and a boudoir shoot on Long Island—we’re ready to pack up our gear and start our next leg in Boulder, Colorado. Our rigorous schedule can be demanding, stressful, and scattered all over the place, but we find that it’s better to push ourselves rather than rest on our laurels because 1. our future selves will thank us; and 2. We have each other.
Heather has been on site for wedding days more often than myself this season, so when I got to shoot with her at the wedding in Ghent, NY, this past weekend, it reminded me of all the great parts of being a wedding photographer. From celebrating a couple’s love, to hearing people speak directly from the heart, and bearing witness to reunion after reunion and hug after hug—there’s so much going on in a wedding to be grateful for.
One thing I cannot emphasize enough for a couple who’s seeking a wedding photographer is to meet with your candidates before the wedding. You don’t realize how intimate the relationship is with your wedding photographer until the day of; when your mother or maid of honor is helping you slip into your dress, or your best man or father is helping you adjust your bow tie in the mirror—and just over your shoulder is a person with a camera. Yes, we’re professionals and can still do our job without really getting to know one another, but when we know what makes you comfortable or the backstory for the details that mean something to you, we can do our jobs that much better. At Apollo Fields, we prefer to be close to our couples, crying with them from behind our cameras rather than maintaining a safe distance from the connections and emotions that make a wedding day so special.
Traveling can be a lot. Personalities can be huge. Energy might not be there. There are so many variables that surround weddings that have stress written all over them, but just like any other obstacles or adversities, sometimes the best thing we can do is control the way we react to them. Better still, we can look at the current circumstances and pull from them the most positive things, choosing the silver lining of our experiences rather than the copper-colored rust of regrets or frustrations. Some say that life is a playground, others say it is a test—I believe it’s somewhere in the middle—with plenty of space for somersaults, self-improvement, and a craft beer in between.
As we zip up our luggage and secure our gear, I am energized by these words alone. They contain my reflections on the choices that I make everyday. I don’t run from difficulty and I am not afraid of the future. I pursue my goals with Heather, my partner who drives me mad at times but always helps to keep the course of this crooked ship. Here’s to the adventures that shape us along the way and the destination best left unknown.
New York Wedding Photographers on Long Island
New York City Wedding Photographers | Colorado Weddings | Apollo Fields Photojournalism | NYC Photography
“Did you guys miss New York?”
This is one of those questions we have been asked by everyone since moving back East. And it’s a good question, but the answer is complicated… When we moved to Colorado in 2016, we were veryready to move. But it wasn’t because we hated NYC, it was just time. It was time to be in nature and time to be in an unknown place together. Big moves like that can make or break a relationship, and for us I guess we got lucky.
When I first moved to New York City a few years before that, I barely knew anyone and the people that I did know were in different boroughs. Despite always having the city close by, the UWS was as much of a mystery to me as if I had moved to Los Angeles by myself. I learned a lot about myself in that first year while I was getting my MA and living in a tiny studio apartment on 105thStreet. It was just me and Riddle, a mini fridge, an oven that leaked Carbon Monoxide, and a sort-of-view of the Hudson River if you hung your head out of the prison-sized window.
I was still living in that death trap of an apartment when I met Terrence. I was riding out my lease before moving farther uptown, but I can still remember one of our first dinners together there. We were eating on the couch because I only had one dining room chair and Terrence was cautioning me about how he didn’t eat onions, fish, tomatoes, etc. I had no idea how to feed such a picky eater, so I just went ahead cooking like I normally did anyway. How far we’ve come since those days.
For as much as I learned about myself being single in NYC, I think we learned as much about each other when we made the move to the mountains together. We had very few connections in CO when we first moved and had to learn how to lean on one another in ways that we hadn’t before. Even though we had lived together in New York, we always had additional roommates (such is life in Manhattan). We had a very familiar neighborhood in New York filled to the brim with drinking buddies, walk-able pubs, and enough libations to stay busy until 4am any time we felt like it.
We landed in Colorado and everything quieted down. We only had each other and our little cottage. We found ourselves less intrigued by urban life and much more content hanging at a local brewery in town with a couple beers and a board game. We got bikes and went hiking, we spent afternoons at the dog park and evenings cuddled up on our couch. Life was good and it was hard to miss NYC at that time.
We were still flying back East multiple times a year for weddings and holidays. We were always happy to come back to familiar faces and good ethnic food. Distance helps you weed out the drinking buddies and bring family to the surface, or at least that was the case for us. Don’t get me wrong, we can still throw back a few shots at a dive bar, but suddenly, we were more interested in making a push for spending time with our siblings instead.
Our decision to move back was multidimensional. We are looking to buy a farm to turn into a wedding venue and the numbers just weren’t adding up in Colorado. The real estate market there was pretty volatile: we were part of a huge boom of fellow transplants making the Rocky Mountain move and we got in too late. By the time we were ready to look at properties, everything was selling above already-high asking prices. Zoning was a nightmare, and anything with a mountain view was just plain cost prohibitive. With the average all-in price of a CO wedding coming in at $26k and NY suburbs at roughly $65k+, we weren’t about to take that kind of business risk just to keep our beloved mountains in our backyard.
So as you all know, at the end of September we packed up our little cottage into our Highlander and drove back East. Animals and cameras in tow, we hit the ground running—getting married, wrapping up busy season, and honeymooning in Jamaica while settling into a new house. We are finally slowing down (but not for long).
We’ve moved into a cute yellow house in East Northport, five minutes from Terrence’s dad and stepmom. We went from a 550sq foot cottage to a real house, which after a few Salvation Army raids is beginning to feel like a home. We are living well by Long Island standards: fenced-in backyard, walking distance to the LIRR, and a ten-minute drive to the North Shore.
Despite being an hour train or car ride from the city, this is a very different lifestyle than when we were actually living in NYC. We are very much in a commuter / family town. The delis and pizzerias are good, but that’s about it in the way of local flavor and small town charm. It is nice to be closer to family again. We have been into the city a few times and it’s been great. We hit The Whitney for the Andy Warhol exhibit and gorged ourselves on international food. We ride the subways like nothing has changed, and traversed up and down the blocks with the sharp cold air lingering on our cheeks.
New York will always be our city, even though if we’re being honest I don’t think I’ll ever live in it again. It doesn’t fit our lifestyle, business trajectory, or relationship anymore. In a perfect world, we won’t be on Long Island for very long, either. We would love to end up on a farm in Bucks County PA or upstate NY. We have big dreams of hosting weddings, homesteading, and photographing more and more amazing couples. We envision an old barn, a big fireplace, chickens and kiddos running through the fields, and a labor-of-love property that gives us as much as we give it.
So the short answer is, yes we missed New York but we also miss Colorado. We like walking through museums as well as walking up mountains. We love our family here and love our friends in CO. We miss the big western skies and the “300 days of sunshine” that we got so used to. But we’re glad to get a decent bagel again. We are lucky because we get to experience such a range of landscapes, and because of our business, we don’t have to choose one or the other. We get to go back to the Rockies for work and play, and in the meantime we are stoked to start to look to the future to find the quirky farm venue that will turn into the biggest passion project we’ve taken on so far.
