Mom sneaks in a hospital maternity shoot hours before her induction
With a few hours to go before her scheduled induction for preeclampsia, expecting mom Jackie Kunzelman, a medical student, could tell from the fetal monitors that her baby “might not be doing well,” she says.
She was terrified. Then, her mom called.
“She was like, ‘The dress just arrived. What do you say we turn your spirits around and do your maternity photoshoot before the induction in a few hours?’”
She said yes — and the results prove it's never too late for a glamorous photoshoot.
Jackie landed in a Scottsdale, Arizona hospital with preeclampsia at 36.5 weeks pregnant.
She had noticed her hands and feet start to swell, and then "all of a sudden in one day, I went up a couple of shoe sizes," she tells TODAY.com.
Kunzelman was given a shot to help her unborn baby’s lungs develop, and her doctor planned to induce labor when she reached 37 weeks.
Jackie had planned to have her photographer sister, Lexi Kunzelman, do her maternity shoot, but it just hadn't happened before she was hospitalized.
Jackie's induction was scheduled to begin at midnight. Her mom, Lori Kunzelman, arrived at the hospital with dresses at 8 p.m. The rest of Jackie's glam squad included her sister-in-law, Kate Anderson, and Anderson's soon-to-be 8-year-old niece, Myla.
"They showed up with curling irons and nail polish and makeup, and then some lighting and backdrops," Jackie recalls.
Lexi came with her camera, and Jackie's husband, Nic Anderson, was there for moral support.
The first-time mom knew she only had about ten minutes before the fetal monitors would alert hospital staff to her impromptu photo shoot.
"I was on edge because I don't like those awkward social situations where you're doing something you shouldn't be doing and someone's possibly going to get mad at you for things, so I was like, 'Oh gosh. Let's hurry!" says Nic.
For the actual shoot, Lexi set up a backdrop in front of the shower curtain, sat on the toilet and moved back as far as she possibly could to get the photo. Still, she had to edit out some wall lights and a sharps container while enhancing the image to make it look like it was taken ... anywhere other than a tiny hospital bathroom.
Jackie somehow managed to climb on top of her hospital bed to get shots of her glamorous pink dress; Lexi turned on the medical spotlights the doctors use and Myla helped out by poofing her aunt's skirt for the shot.
A nurse happened to walk in when the mom-to-be was still standing on the bed, but Jackie says she was "a good sport" about the whole thing. She did, however, remind Jackie that she had a "really intense doctor" who likely would not approve.
Luckily, Lexi got her shots by that time, so the nurse helped Jackie get down and hooked her back up to all of the monitors.
Baby Rocky arrived the following day at noon via C-section.
Though he was three weeks premature, and very small, he didn't need oxygen or NICU time. The family of three is back home together. Jackie says that Rocky is "the light of my life."
But she’ll never forget those hectic and hilarious few hours before his birth.
"I had such a good time," Jackie says. "It was so fun to spend that time with my family. They just cheered me up and I I felt like a million bucks for the first time all week — maybe all pregnancy."
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
