Birmingham Mom Collective :: Introducing Meg

I’m Meg. I’m a former architect turned photographer.  I love photographing people, specifically weddings, portraits, and births. I’m an avid reader and knit almost weekly with a group of 50+-year-old women whom I love and consider family. In my spare time, I work remotely for a professional film lab out of Montgomery, and I was just appointed to the Homewood Board of Zoning and Adjustment. I’m so excited to be a part of the Birmingham Mom Collective, so thank you for taking the time to get to know a little about me. 

Birmingham

I’m a Birmingham-area transplant from the San Francisco Bay Area where I was born and raised. I moved to Homewood just over six years ago when I married my husband, Lance, who had just moved six months prior for his job. When we started to explore the area together I was happily surprised to find so many beautiful hiking trails and a seemingly endless supply of books from the Jefferson County Library Collective.  

I quickly fell in love with the little-big city feel of Birmingham and its beautiful spring and fall seasons. Living here came with its challenges, of course, as a person of color in an interracial marriage, but we took it in stride. And over the years, I’ve grown to love my little community and the vast array of strangers who’ve become friends. 

I sometimes share my Birmingham adventures on our family hashtag, #thebirminghands. 

Mom

When I got married, getting pregnant was the last thing on my mind. I was a newlywed trying to adjust to marriage and living in a brand new place. But inevitably we started thinking about adding to our little family and decided it was the right time to have children. That was almost four years ago, and still our little family is just us. After countless tests, four failed IUIs, one failed IVF, and too many needles and medications to count, we’re still at square one. So here we are, waiting and praying, and hopefully someday there will be at least one more of us to love. 

Collective

I look forward to sharing advice about family and birth photography: why you might need it, how to prepare, how to make it the best experience for your family . . . etc. I’ve been a birth photographer for over ten years, so I’m also excited to share my unique perspective on all things birth-related. 

Finally, as a woman in her late thirties dealing with infertility, I sometimes feel like I’m the only woman without a child or that the only social groups available for women in their thirties or forties require motherhood for membership. I know intellectually none of that is true, but I also know that repeated negative pregnancy tests very easily make me feel like a part of the “have-nots.” In joining the Birmingham Mom Collective I hope to remind and encourage all the women who are struggling with infertility that you are not alone and even though you’re not a mom, yet, you still belong. And yes, the irony of myself being in the Birmingham Mom Collective as a “non-mom” is not lost on me. I have a good chuckle when I tell friends I’m writing for the BMC even though I don’t have children. 

All in all, I’m so thankful to be a part of such a great community of strong women and can’t wait to share my thoughts and experiences with y’all. 

(And just because . . . some of my favorite family & birth photos.)