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.
By Jana Romanova
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.
Comments
36 Comments so far
Loved these photos! How staged were they though? In some they look like they definitely were but others look natural. Loved them though.
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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.
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Pic 18, hahahaha
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Some of them are beautiful. I’m 30 weeks pregnant and don’t have a partner to sleep with. Wish more than anything I did tho.
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Pic 12 – looks like he’s about to get lucky ?! Again.
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Does anyone else find these photos mildly depressing??
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Mmmm Monday morning… This just makes me want to go back to bed
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Interesting but definitely not breathtaking. I love my king size bed with its Sheridan sheets. None of those beds took my fancy. Makes you realise how lucky we are and how we take for granted even our bedding. Most of the beds were thin mattresses on the floor. Long way for the last weeks of pregnancy lady to get up from.
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“You were about 25 when you began working on this project—that’s kinda young to be thinking about babies, no?”
I am a bit offended by this. Since when was it a crime to be interested in babies when at a very fertile age? Should all women be waiting until they are at an age where IVF is necessary before becoming interested in motherhood? I feel that there is quite a lot of negativity towards younger mothers on mamma mia and Im a bit over it…. end of off topic rant.
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Nope, just statistics, according to the ABS the age at which women have their first baby is now 28.9 years, so yes statistically 25 is still quite young.
“Women aged 30-34 years have the highest fertility rate of all age groups. Further, since 2005 the fertility rate for women aged 35-39 years has far exceeded that of women aged 20-24 years.” Just statistics, not a perceived bias or negativity.
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Geez Louise – there is no ‘right age’. Pregnancies cannot be prescripted by a GP. Life is not formulaic. We are individuals (cannot believe I just quoted Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson). That is what makes life beautiful.
Statistics of the average age of a first time mum do not make it the correct age for all women.
We don’t all travel and screw around from 18-22, pursue our careers aggressively from 22-25, neatly meet the one aged 25/26 and then marry and buy a house at 27. We can’t all get knocked up on our 28th birthday then pop a baby out nine months later. Life does not work that way. Life is organic. Love often comes when you are not looking, when you are busy with other goals. Sometimes when you throw your hands up and ‘quit’ men, the right one comes along, despite your protests. Ironic.
The right time is when you are with the *right person* in the right relationship whether you are 22 or 27 or 32 or 37 or even 42. Even the parameters around ‘right’ in those cases differ from woman to woman.
Also, when you have pretty much sorted your finances and time available to parent / care for a child. And even that can be ‘mostly right’.
There is no perfect date for it that you can jot down in your diary or in your iPhone.
I began to think about marriage and kids around 26 but was with the wrong guy (even though he wanted us to go in ‘that direction’). I split with him, and right now single.
It is SOOO about the right relationship – not a freakin’ number. If we’d gen to have kids to hit your 28.9 years of age number, it would have been a disaster for the kids, and for me. And probably him as well – I didn’t love him a bit.
And if you don’t; meet the right person when you are fertile, then it is fie to go it alone if motherhood is an important life goal.
Also it is OK to have a Caesar, it is fine to bottle-feed, it is OK to work when you have a child, it is OK to be a single parent, and public school education is fine. Not saying these are my own personal preferences but let’s get our noses out of other people’s business unless there is abuse going on – then it *would* be a good idea to intervene.
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Did you bother to consider that the interview was in Russia with a Russian interviewee though?
The Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development doesn’t have exact data for the average age of first-time mothers in Russia, but statistics from a number of unofficial sources put the figure at about 27. According to some estimates, in Moscow women tend to have children between the ages of 23 and 28, while in other regions of the country mothers are still a bit younger.
25 is not so young when you look at it in context.
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Me too, I’m 26 & thinking about taking that leap. I’m worried about societies response if I do. How is it too young?
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Here here! So over hearing that your 20′s is too young to be thinking about having a family! Your teens is too young, not your 20′s – and I should know I’m 28 with an 11 year old, but you know what? My family is no different to someone starting in their 30′s or later – my son has his two parents together who are married, if anything I think he’s luckier as we have the energy to do the same thingsnasnhe does and we will be around a lot longer in his life.
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I found these interesting as “couples” photos, more than as “pregnant women” photos.
Also found the surroundings interesting, as other people have mentioned.
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Not sure about you but I could not sleep on my back when heavily pregnant …. too uncomfortable and unsafe for babe also …
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Kinda interesting, yes. Breathtaking? Um, no. Definitely not that.
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Who knew that a guy with Star Wars sheets could actually get laid?!
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Why are they sleeping in the daytime? Some of the photos are great, other it’s pretty clear that they’re aren’t asleep.
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I didn’t realise this was Russian until the end. I was less interested in the pregnant women and more interested in the tiny, cluttered bedrooms! Who knew so many couples slept in a single bed?
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.. and on couches? Quite a few look like sofa beds to me..?
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And wearing socks
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I thought the same! So squishy – especially if you’re pregnant!
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When you are poor and/or have very little space, you pretty much sleep anywhere. I am actually suprised that people are suprised of the general living conditions of some (most likely many) Russian people, somewhat very parochial mindsets it would appear.
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I found these photos very uncomfortable to look at. Very strange, mildly disturbing and weird. I get the feeling that they are very staged. Some of those people do not look asleep to me. They just look like they have their eyes closed and are pretending.
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Is it just me or was anyone else as equally fascinated by the insight given by seeing inside all those Russian bedrooms?
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a level of poverty and double used space
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I found these photos kinda strange. I love the pregnant body and the way different women embrace pregnancy, but I found these photos weird.
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Love these pictures. They all seem to have very small beds and are very close to each other! I slept on my belly during pregnancy so my picture would have been very boring! lol
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I have not been pregnant – so forgive my ignorance – but are you meant to sleep on your belly during pregnancy? Wouldn’t that be too much pressure – eg squish the growing baby and / or your belly? Would that not be uncomfortable? Am curious.
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At 39 weeks, you’d be in luck to get a photo of me sleeping. Far easier to get a photo of me waddling to the toilet, standing up to try to relieve the incredible pain in my pelvis/back/hip/thighs, staring into space wide awake or wondering if that pain is a contraction.
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You described me perfectly at 30 weeks, how am I going to manage another 10 weeks? I want to re-name these pics “The last time I slept in three years”.
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Wow, Russians sleep so that they’re completely entangled in each other.
They also have extremely small beds.
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It’s very cold. In Australia where it’s hot we need huge beds to get as far away from our sweaty, hot partners & kids as possible ; )
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Perhaps. It gets pretty cold in Melbourne but I’ve never slept like that. I think these photos look quite staged.
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Maybe some of them live in tiny apartments with tiny bedrooms that aren’t big enough to fit a double bed into?
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