Welcome to the brand spankin' new Worthington Photography Blog! We are Sam and Mel, a husband-wife photography team based in the "rivah city" of Richmond, Virginia. We hope you'll come on in, sit a spell, and browse through Mel's journal of our most recent shoots and adventures. If you wish to reminisce, you can still access posts from our old blog here. Enjoy!
The snow has been great but the Worthington family is taking off for sunnier weather and will return on Wednesday, February 17th. We appreciate your patience with edits and print orders while we are gone and we look forward to sharing more photos here upon our return… Stay warm until then!
Then comes marriage…
And FINALLY,
Sam and Mel are pushing a baby carriage.
We welcomed Samuel Madison Worthington V to our world at 10:14 in the morning on August 31, 2009. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 4 oz and 20.5 inches long. Momma calls him Fiver and Poppa calls him Madison. We are madly in love and can’t take our eyes off of him.
The birth had a destiny of its own, he surprised us all by coming down breech and necessitating a cesarean section at the hospital. While the loss of the opportunity to birth at home was devastating, I did go into labor on my own birthday after a great day spent with family and close friends and had the opportunity to labor naturally through the night and morning before the OR was ready for us. He came out yelling and didn’t even need suction, he was healthy and aware. We were given a very special gift: he was passed directly to me under the surgical fields as he emerged for skin to skin contact before being cleaned up and assessed, a very special thanks to Nancy and Dr. Fitzhugh for making that happen for us. Therese got these photos with our camera of that moment, I can’t believe we have the most joyful moment of our lives to date recorded like this (rock on, Therese….)
Here’s photos of our midwife, Nancy, helping us with our first latch moments later:
Here’s a few photos of what our first two weeks as a new family have looked like. We can’t thank or friends and family enough for all the supportive phone calls, grocery store runs, home cooked meals and love. We can’t thank our clients enough for their patience as we get settled as a family… we may be a little slow to respond right now but we’re still here! One thing about life with a newborn is that you are definitely living in the moment…
The nights are rough and the days disjointed but this is what I wake up to every morning. Life is good.
Its hard to appreciate just how good we’ve got it sometimes. Sam and I have never had to live apart unlike military families who have had to cope with deployments far away from their families during war time. Having Dina and Paresh in my life gives me perspective on what’s important and leaves me ever grateful for the sacrifices they have made for their country and for the future of our kids. A pediatrician and emergency physician, both have deployed to serve our military men and women as well as civilians of Iraq (Dina) and Afghanistan (Paresh). I was so happy that Paresh was able to plan a two week leave to meet his newborn daughter Leela just a week after her birth and I hope that he is home to stay soon. I spent an afternoon in Maryland with the briefly reunited family back in February and wanted to share some photos with everyone here.
I saw most things in black and white on this visit, maybe because time seemed irrelevant. I’ve learned that your whole life is on pause when you or your partner deploys, that you are just waiting for the time to pass so you can pick back up again where you left off as a family. Kids, of course, are never on pause and that makes it particularly hard to be away. It was so nice to see life off pause and on play that afternoon and hoped the pictures I took could feel like yesterday or tomorrow.
Tej is already such a great big bro! And so happy to get some time in with his dad…
Paresh’s parents traveled to town for a brief visit with the family:
My favorite pictures came from some family TV time on the couch and I can’t wait to see everyone plopped on the couch together again soon. Its funny how such an every day, ordinary action can become so extraordinary.
I love you guys and hope Paresh comes home soon.
These pics are so overdue, its not even funny. I’m a slacker when it comes to taking pictures of our personal life and even worse about sharing them with anyone. You can either be behind the camera as an observer or in front of it as a participant. When it comes to my niece Jordan, its obvious that I would rather hold her than my camera: these are the most recent photos I have taken and she was only 2 weeks old! (We’re closing in on 8 now). I’m hoping that this post will light a fire under my rear because she is already such a different kid from these newborn photos:
Jordan has a great “grumpy” face as she demonstrates here with Daddy Brian:
Jordan is in the 95% percentile on height, she’s super long (surprise, surprise). Check out the flippers on this kid…
She’s super aware most of the time, she loves to be held so that she can look out at everyone else. And of course she’s an angel when she sleeps:
One February 15th, just three weeks after we welcomed Jordan to the world, one of my closest friends gave birth to a baby girl, Leela Devi Patel. I traveled to DC to spend time when Leela first came home and took some pics while she was just a few days old. 2009 is turning out to be the year of the some V.I.Bs (very important babies) in our lives.
Unlike Jordan, Leela is a major snoozer…Dina actually has to wake her up during the night for feedings! I love how she positions her feet together so perfectly like a little yoga baby:
She even slept through a diaper change and outfit change during one of Mel Mahsi’s photo sessions…
Dina got this pic of Leela and I with my camera, I love it so much:
I will post more pics of Leela joined by her family soon…
