A New Script: Pregnancy Photos

Kristen Berman

3 min readMay 9, 2022

There are pretty defined Scripts for life events.

When this happens, do this.

When you get engaged, send out a “Save the Date”

Ideally, your “Save the Date” picture shows you walking hand-in-hand looking at each other.

When you get married, capture that “First look” shot. The man needs to be ready with that “wow, I’m a lucky guy” grin.

And when you have a baby? Take semi-sexy, belly-forward pregnancy photos.

Or if you’re Rhianna, take very sexy pregnancy, very belly-forward photos.

The scripts are clear.

Scripts (or rituals) like these aren’t bad — scripts help us celebrate big milestones and even act as a modern rite of passage. A man looking at his future bride in her wedding dress for the first time has weighty significance.

But do we have to follow scripts exactly?

If opting out isn’t your thing, then the next question becomes: how can you slightly change the script?

Well, it may just take a little creativity, friends…and some body paint.

A New Pregnancy Photo Script

[script: be weird]

Picture 1: The beer belly.

Picture 2: Free-loading turtle hides under women’s shirt for 10 months.

Picture 3: Optical illusion — do I look skinny?

Picture 4: Magic 8 ball

Will the baby come today??

So the question we can ask ourselves: What scripts are we following too closely? And where can we veer off the script a little bit — to have more fun, but to also make some (new and novel) memories?