Today, I'll Love You Forever

The month of February is often coined the "month of love." The candy isles at the local grocery store are stocked with the world's favorite sweets that have been poured into heart shaped molds and wrapped in beautiful shades of red and pink. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about this holiday is that the pressures and "rules" of some of the other days celebrated throughout the year just don't apply to this one. There is no set of guidelines to follow or criteria to meet to deem your Valentine's Day a "perfect" day other than to share it with someone or someones you love. We often think of this holiday as a day for romance to bloom in the air (especially as Spring lurks right around the corner), and although all the romantic fairy tale moments that this day can bring, and I've had my share of those being married to the most amazing man on the planet for the last 18 years, there is one specific Valentine's Day that I will never forget and that will always be my favorite one. On Valentine's Day 2011, I laid on an exam table on the top floor of very large medical building in the city closest to the small town we lived in. The room was dark and of course cold, as most doctor's offices are, and the gel that had been squeezed out of a tube onto my abdomen was body temperature warm. It didn't take but a few seconds for the deafening silence in the room to be replaced with the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my entire life... a sound I could listen to for the rest of my life and nothing else and be perfectly content... the sweet, perfect, rhythmic lullabye of a healthy baby boy heartbeat. It was on that table that Valentine's Day that I knew that my heart was filled with as much love as one human heart could possibly contain in a given moment in time, and that all the years of chocolates and roses and candy hearts paled in comparison to the gift I had just been given on this Valentine's Day... and all I remember thinking was, "I'll love you forever." 

It is likely because of my own experiences with motherhood that I love capturing those most emotive moments between a mother and her child/children. I, of course, love a good emotional story to tell, and there isn't one that is more pure or more powerful than motherhood. Thank you to the  LaBorde family for the honor of being invited into these most magical moments. ~Shantel