My Husband Was Able To Capture The First Moment We Met Our First Born, And It's Beautiful

Last May 2023, we asked our readers to submit photos capturing the raw and unfiltered moments of motherhood. Out of thousands of entries, we carefully selected the top 100, and then handpicked the top 10. This article is part of a series that delves into the stories behind the 10 winning photos of the Smart Parenting Motherhood 100 photo contest.

Childbirth is a miracle of life that’s both terrifying and beautiful. The labor pains a mother has to endure from the moment she discovers she is with child all the way up until she gives birth and meets her bundle of joy nine months later is a journey she navigates with pride, strength, and grace.

For Jetrina Velasco, hers began a month earlier than expected.  

“My water bag ruptured a month before the expected due date. We immediately rushed to the hospital. I then stayed alone at Makati Medical Center, and on complete bed rest for over a week, to prevent the baby from arriving prematurely."

"Then, I spent two days of agonizing pain during labor. It was my first and most painful labor among the three times I've given birth,” she shares. 

The End and The Beginning 

Her photo submission, titled “The Day I First Met You,” captures the end of the physical and emotional torment she endured, as well as the beginning of rest, solace, and utter joy as she welcomed this beautiful new chapter in her life. 

“The photo depicts the perfect moment after the final push. How it shows the connection between the mother and the baby through the umbilical cord. It is about the pain endured during pregnancy and childbirth. It is about the happiness upon hearing the baby's first cry,” Jetrina shares with Smart Parenting. 

Unbreakable Bonds 

For many, including Jetrina, this tangible connection between baby and mother, tied by a single cord, symbolizes a profound bond that begins long before the baby is born.

In the womb, a mother’s body transforms into a safe haven, a fortress. As the cord is cut, so enters a new beginning of a baby’s life outside the confines of the environment he once knew. But even in those first seconds of life outside of the womb, mother and baby remain connected as one. 

Every mother remembers the moment she hears her baby’s first cry. A sound that’s both sweet and triumphant, it’s a memory that runs deep within your core, like a song she has always known but can’t remember how or when she first heard it.

If a photograph could speak, “The Day I First Met You” would be every mother’s ode to the miracle of life and bringing light into this world borne out of her strength.