I’ve never been big on 365-projects, but have been tracking a few of my photographer friends documenting their babies’ first year… and quickly new what I HAD to do once baby Atticus arrived. The plan is to put together a beautiful BIG coffee table album at the end of his first year featuring a page/layout with at least one picture from every day. A sort of “day in the life of Atticus” book.
Since it’s unlikely that I personally will be available to take his picture each and every day for a whole year… some of the images will be ones that Mike captures, other photographers make, and/or friends and family take. After all, it would be good to actually be IN some of the pictures too!
I’m not sure if I will be posting all of the images online throughout the year, but I’d like to start by sharing what I have from his first few weeks.
The first set of images are by Katie of 6 of Four who captured the birth. This first image was actually taken the day before Atticus was born – my water broke ON my due date – Wednesday March 21, 2012.
Zero Days Old – Atticus’ Birth Date – Thursday March 22, 2012 at 2:36PM. Mike looking at me, just moments before…
I love that Katie took a picture as they called out the birth time
Atticus is born!! The doctors checking him out and wiping him off for a few seconds before handing him off to us.
In our arms for the first time!
Atticus has been a thumb-sucker from the get-go… we even saw him on the ultrasound sucking his thumb!! He pretty much sucks on whatever is in his path – fingers, fist, our hands/fingers, clothing, pacifiers, and he’s even gone for Mike’s neck and chin a few times! Haha!
After about 40 minutes in our arms, he got weighed and measured.
Footprints done too!
It was a few hours later that we were transferred to the recovery room where we’d be for the remainder of our stay and the grandparents got to see their first grandchild for the very first time.
One Day Old
Mike took this one of me and Atticus in the hospital. I couldn’t walk without assistance at this point and was pretty exhausted and in lots of pain but holding this little guy in my arms made it so much better.
Both sets of parents visited again that day and Mike tried out an outfit on Atticus late in the day. I shot this image from the hospital bed with my iPhone just as Mike was taking a few pictures of him with my parents looking on.
Two Days Old – Going home from the hospital! His little hand-mits were necessary to keep him from scratching his face up too much.
This was a really tough day for me since I still could not walk without assistance and I wanted so much to experience a lot of Atticus’ “firsts” at home but felt I could not due to my immobility and pain. Neither Mike nor I had gotten much sleep at this point. I hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep at a time since before Atticus was born since the nurses and doctors seemed to come in about every hour to check on the baby or me. The first four to five days were somewhat of a blur due to sleep deprivation and being in extreme pain. Thankfully my parents stepped in last-minute to help out and pretty much cooked, cleaned, and did whatever needed to be done… helped make sure Mike and I were taken care of so he could take care of us and I could feed Atticus and try to rest.
Three Days Old – What should have been a relaxing Sunday at home turned into another day spent at the hospital. Mike and my dad took Atticus in to the nursery at the hospital for a routine check (since the pediatrician’s office was closed on Sunday and would otherwise would have been able to do the check). The hospital pediatrician threatened to keep Atticus overnight on IV fluids because he’d dropped additional weight since we’d left the day before. At this point my milk supply still had not come in and was in transition, so I had my mom rush me to the hospital to meet with them and work out a plan so we could take him home with us and continue to work on his feedings and getting his weight back up. It turned out that the next day at our pediatrician’s visit they explained that Atticus had NOT lost enough weight that we should have been too concerned — we went through all of that stress on Sunday unnecessarily!! The following two pictures were taken by me with my iPhone – Mike spending some time with his little guy after the hospital and Charlie keeping me and Atticus company during a middle-of-the-night feeding.
Four Days Old – Atticus’ first pediatrician visit. Dr.Wagner was amazing and spent a good hour with us going over everything and was really encouraging. It was a huge contrast to the scare we’d gotten from the hospital pediatrician the day before. I left feeling SO much better even though I was pretty much a delierious basket-case still. This day was somewhat of a turning point for me, and especially that night. Mike got up with Atticus for one of the middle-of-the-night feedings (somehow without me hearing Atticus cry) and I was able to sleep a whole 5-6 hours! It’s amazing what a little sleep can do for you! I took the following two images with Mike’s Fuji X-100 camera.
When we got home, Atticus slept soundly in his car seat as Grace watched on curiously (iPhone picture).
Five Days Old - After finally getting some good sleep and me being able to walk a little bit, day five was pretty amazing. It also was the first day I picked up my trusty workhorse of a camera (Canon 5D MkII), which just arrived back from getting cleaned. Speaking of cleaning… Atticus’ got his first sponge bath at home …
And made his first social visit. We stopped by our small group for about a half hour and surprised them by introducing the little guy. Here he is surrounded by all the ladies…
Six Days Old – Another great day! The whole family ventured into Buckhead to see the same chiropractor who’d treated me throughout the pregnancy. I got some much needed relief and she examined Atticus to make sure all was well with him after the birth – he checked out great and seemed to enjoy the small tweaks.
That evening Sara came by for a visit and took our first proper family portraits! Thank you Sara!!!
Seven Days Old – Just a regular day at home. It was the first day we were able to stay at home all day and didn’t have anywhere to be or much to do. We had finally managed to get Atticus on a better feeding/napping schedule and had him more alert during the day, and sleeping more at night (versus the opposite which he seemed partial to since even before the birth!!) 
Here he is just hanging out with daddy in the afternoon during one of his “awake” times…
I’m so glad I have these images from this special time…and such a mix of styles too from different photographers, perspectives and equipment. I can’t wait to see the finished 365-day-in-the-life book this time next year – I can already tell how quickly he is changing and it’s going to be so neat to look back on.
