I have been doing some soul searching lately and some thinking about my connection I have with a lot of the women that come to me for the experience of a boudoir shoot. I am very much a thinker, my mind will not shut up…so in some type of convoluted way, I am going to attempt to explain my thoughts on why this is such a passion for me.

I was sexually molested as a child. As often times, it was at the hands of family memebers (yes, plural) and through most of my adult life I had always brushed the events off as “no big deal” because I wasn’t raped or, if I recall correctly, not even touched myself, but made to touch them. So, this didn’t seem like a big deal to me. I have had friends tell me their stories of abuse and they seem way more horrific than mine, but evidently mine WAS a big deal in the way my mind and sexuality formed.

I have had patterns in my life of some serious self sabotage related to the way my subconscious viewed myself. I have uprooted my life and several relationships and have done some really stupid things (as all humans have). It’s like if things are going really good, my mind says, ” let’s see what we can do to eff this up royally!”

Now, to the heart of this conversation…I have struggled with infertility all of my life. Yes, I have a son, and he’s a fluke lol. I’m not really sure how I did finally get pregnant with him because I had went for years and through different procedures trying to get pregnant and finally did at age 27. Then had a terrible pregnancy and almost anything that could go wrong during it, did. It sucked. I hated being pregnant (took a lot of therapy for me to even be able to say that without guilt about it) but when he was born, was just an absolute dream (and still is!).

Infertility is a wicked thing, women are SUPPOSED to have babies. That’s what society and your family, and everyone else you ever meet, once someone gets married the next question is when are you going to have babies….infertility does something to you as a woman. It beats you up and fills you with shame and guilt and can attack your subconscious mind in a bad way. (Sexual molestation and infertility can be linked together actually, want more information on that read this article.).

I have had so many women sit in my office during a consultation that have struggled with infertility. They definitely forget they are beautiful and still very much are women who can and should be loved and adored and desired!! This is what makes having a shoot done, such an empowering experience for them. It’s okay, actually encouraged, to feel like you are someone beautiful, sexy, even wanton in my place. Sex isn’t a dirty thing, having sexual desires isn’t bad, and being a woman who can embrace the characteristics of being a woman, is priceless to be able to feel, for a change, like a woman who is beautiful regardless of what your body won’t do. I love to see a woman see herself on the back of my camera in a new and different, guilt-free way and to watch them blossom and get in touch with the place in their brain that forgives themselves for being “inadequate”.

Now, thankfully in my life, even dealing with secondary infertility for several years after having my son, I’m done with desiring to have  more children. It was a long hard process to come to terms with and to know I won’t be able to give my husband a child of his own, I realize I’m not inadequate to him and he loves me for me anyway (for whatever reason lol) and I have come a very long way in my journey to be happy and healthy. It heals me to help other women and I feel it helps my connection with women because I’ve been through some crap too, we all have.

I hope this makes some sense and thanks for reading if you’re at this last sentence!!! We are all just doing the best we can to get through this life, love each other!!