A mother has inspired a trend on TikTok after sharing photos of what she’d wanted her birth photos to look like from her time in labour, and the candid ones that she actually received.
Kelsey Rodriguez, who goes by the username @kelsrod on TikTok, uploaded the original video in December, which began with her showing photos of the types of pictures she’d hoped her husband would take while she was giving birth.
“The pics I wanted my husband to take in the hospital,” Rodriguez wrote in a text caption on the video, which played Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond alongside a montage of photos of new mothers in the hospital with their babies.
Rodriguez then shared the photos that her husband took of her own birthing experience, along with the caption: “The pics he ended up taking.” In one photo, she could be seen sitting in her hospital bed and gown and giving the middle finger to the camera, while another saw her lying down as she held their newborn. The photos also included the moment she held the baby in one hand while she used her other to hold her phone, and a close-up of her sleeping with her mouth open.
In the comments of the viral video, many viewers still praised the candid photos, with one person writing: “Raw and real. Love it,” while another person said: “Your pictures are REAL LIFE.”
“I just know that’s going to be my hubby. He takes the worst photos of me,” someone else jokingly claimed.
In the comments, Rodriguez also noted that she’d made the video as a joke “to show off these embarrassing, but hilarious pics of myself,” and that she actually loves the photos her partner took.
“I truly enjoy the more realistic and raw pics that my crazy husband took,” she added.
While the TikToker acknowledged that she loves the “raw” pictures more than staged ones, the video prompted a trend on the app, where other mothers began sharing their own versions of Rodriguez’s video.
In one version, posted by Monica, who goes by the username @monicachai on TikTok, she followed the same format, creating a video of some of the photos she expected her boyfriend to take of her during her labour.
She then shared the photos he’d actually taken, which included a photo of himself posing in front of the hospital bed, as well as one in which Monica was sitting upright in bed and wearing a hospital hair net and an oxygen mask.
“It’s the selfie for me,” she joked in the caption. In the comments, viewers were equally amused by the photos, with one person noting: “I did not expect to laugh this much,” while someone else commented: “I’m sorry but I laughed.”
In a TikTok created by a mother named Caitlyn, who goes by the username @caitlynn._thornton, she also shared the birth photos she’d wanted, and the vastly different photos her husband took.
In the first photo, Caitlyn could be seen lying in her hospital bed and covering her face, while the next showed the couple taking a filtered selfie which left Caitlyn’s face distorted. “He could’ve done better,” she wrote in the caption.
While viewers were also amused by the pictures, one person noted that “it’s the thought that counts”. “At least he tried,” someone else joked.
Despite the amusing reactions from both the mothers and viewers, many TikTok users claimed that the candid photos were even more special than staged pictures.
“Yours are better. They are real! Every mother can relate to that happiness, confusion, exhaustion, fear, trauma, joy, hope, love,” one person commented.
