Don’t let the headline fool you. We didn’t break into the houses of pregnant women and take photos of them asleep in the their beds. No. We didn’t. We wouldn’t do that.
But after you see this absolutely breathtaking series of pictures – you’ll be glad that someone did.
You can check out the rest of these amazing images on Jana’s website (click on ‘Waiting’ to see the whole series.)
Jana Romanova is the woman who took the photos. She’s a Russian photographer and she took 40 photos of her friends, relatives and strangers and their partners as they slept in the morning – to correlate with the 40 weeks of pregnancy.
This is an interview she did with Vice magazine about the how she got those incredible shots.
You were about 25 when you began working on this project—that’s kinda young to be thinking about babies, no? Was your clock ticking already?
No, it was the exact opposite. It was around then that I started noticing a lot of my friends getting pregnant, and suddenly everything changed. All the fun and the drinking and the hitchhiking stopped and, for me, it was a really difficult moment because I felt like I was alone.
Did you try to find women who were at different stages of pregnancy to photograph, too?
I did, but it was very difficult. In Russia, there’s this superstition where a lot people won’t share the news that they’re pregnant until the third month for fear of losing the baby.
What It Means To Give Birth On Country
The Delivery Room
Top Comments
Loved these photos! How staged were they though? In some they look like they definitely were but others look natural. Loved them though.
I'm now 20 but when I was 18 I lived in Russia for 6 months. I slept in a tiny bed both width and length which was a huge shock for me, but my bedroom was about 3 metres by 1.5 so that explains the tiny beds.
I visited many flats and it wasn't uncommon to have a day bed. It was extremely rare to visit anyone who lived in a house, majority of people live in flats with about 3 rooms and often a lounge room would become a bedroom at night, with beds folded out each night. Also the bedding is very different, nothing like our luxurious doonas and comfortable pillows!
One thing they do very well at is indoor heating which was most often unbearably hot. They loved it like that which is why you can see many are barely using their covers.
To be able to sleep at night with the heating on (which was a set temperature building wide and could not be adjusted) while it was -30 degrees outside I would sleep with the window open. I'm not kidding, they thought I was crazy but I would much rather be cosy under the doona that sweating and completely overheated. Completely oxymoronic.