Never has the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” been truer than when looking at birth photos. The amount of emotion — relief, joy, and exhaustion, among so many other feelings — that is expressed in those photos is incredible.
Photographer Marek Dziekonski captured one of these images immediately following his wife Anne’s delivery of their twins; it captures every feeling this mother was experiencing in a single, frozen image.
For Anne, this special moment captured by her husband conveyed an even deeper emotion, seeing the twins as rainbow babies. She is holding her two infants while having a single tear about to fall from her face and her brows are slightly furrowed. Her mouth is slightly parted, it’s like you can feel everything Anne is feeling, whether you’ve given birth or not.
Already parents to two boys, Domnik and Leo, the couple got pregnant again before the twins, but unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. Then, when Anne fell pregnant with her twins Ian and Lucy, she scarcely noticed the size of her bump at 18 weeks because she was so relieved to be carrying a healthy pregnancy. The mother, who is one of fourteen children, was truly astonished to learn that they were expecting two young children.
Anne said: “After our miscarriage, it was so humbling to realize that God’s plan was greater than either of us could have imagined. We were going to have two babies after all.”
“The first time Anne sees her babies is one of the moments that has always been extremely important for me to capture”. [It’s] the mystifying, incredible miracle that is motherhood. That moment Anne sees her babies for the first time is pure love. Pain and exhaustion take a back seat during that moment.”
After nearly an hour of pushing, Anne gave birth to both Ian and Lucy; she later said that the picture of Lucy taken immediately after her birth captured one of her happiest memories.
“Once I was holding them in my arms nothing else mattered. It was all worth it. They were mine and I couldn’t imagine how I ever lived a day without them.”
