If you’ve read any of my past pregnancy posts, you know I’m not one to glorify being knocked up. Beleaguered by symptoms, I usually come off more gripey than grateful. But despite the puking, heartburn, shortness of breath, and lately some pretty profound Braxton Hicks contractions (ouch), there is one thing that’s been incredibly special to me about this pregnancy, and that’s sharing it with my 4-year-old daughter. Whenever she throws her arms around my belly and murmurs greetings to “baby sister,” it’s all worth it.

I wanted to capture one of these sister/future sister embraces in a photo that we could show the girls someday, but my efforts were a huge fail. Imagine a three-headed monster taking a selfie. So I enlisted the help of my friend Genevieve, a fabulous family photographer, to shoot some maternity photos at the state park. We had all the elements: beautiful weather, matching pastel outfits, and and a big pregnant belly. Nice, right?

In fact, everything was going great until a cop busted up my maternity photo shoot.