Newborn photos: They’re inevitably awww-inducing, and probably among the most liked and best-performing posts on Facebook. But this recent, gone-viral photo shoot isn’t your average set of newborn photos. Instead of making your uterus ache, they’ll likely make you laugh. But more than that, these photos will touch your heart, too.
Here’s the announcement that mom Rebecca Jensvold Hayes wrote on Facebook:
Announcing
Clayton Denes
Born 12/12/1995
240lbs 4oz 75 inches long
Proud parents Becca and David
It’s accompanied by all of the usual posed shots. But the popular baby feet photo looks a little different when the newborn’s feet aren’t so little and are actually attached to a 240-pound 21-year-old:
You see, Hayes and her former boyfriend David Ward had already broken up by the time their son Clayton was born, so they didn’t take photos as a family. After high school, they each married other people. Hayes and Ward always stayed cordial, but it was only after they both lost their spouses that the two reconnected on a deeper level.
“We had texts and phone calls and long talks over coffee about the crazy thoughts you have and the ridiculous things people say to you and what it feels like to be in this horrible club of the widowed,” Hayes wrote. She calls their new romance “scary and wonderful and crazy… but real.”
That was when Hayes realized they hadn’t done a traditional newborn photo shoot back in 1995. She told the Huffington Post she was surprised that both Ward and son Clayton were immediately on board with her epic idea. Her friend Duffi Finnegan Crowson, from Chaotic Perfection Photography, met up with them to take the kinds of photos normally reserved for 7-pound babies. The photographer, who has been friends with Hayes since they were 5 years old, says Clayton was a good sport throughout.
And people all over are feeling the love in these hilarious family shots. Chaotic Perfection Photography is getting a ton of sweet comments on Facebook, and Love What Matters shared the story, with 26,000 people liking or loving it.
Hayes acknowledged to one poster that she was hoping the photos didn’t come off creepy but, in the end, she decided to “Embrace the weird!”