Babies Born During Wildfire Get Adorable Photo Shoot

You may recall the wildfire that raged through the Williams Lake area of British Columbia over the summer. Like the many people recently affected by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, pregnant women were among the evacuees in Canada.

As one of those expectant mamas, Amy Lynn Emery, told BuzzFeed, "Any birth plan I had went out the door. It was pretty rough. This was a whole new scary thing for me to be going through."

Just a month after evacuating, Emery welcomed a son, Carver. Thirty other moms had babies during the wildfire crisis, too. So, Emery set up a Facebook page for their little group, and that's when a local photographer named Laureen Carruthers stepped in. The result? An adorable, and ambitious photo shoot of all 31 so-called "fire babies."

Carruthers told Parents about the making image happen that although she expected things to be held up by fussiness, diaper changes and feedings, "I was absolutely blown away. We finished the shoot in under one hour!"

She added, "Originally I had planned to do all of the babies in one photo. When the [number of participants] began to climb and climb, I knew that wasn't going to work, so we did babies in groups or varying sizes. Some were groups of 5, some of 2...it varied. This way, people rotated quite quickly in and out." And, the day of the shoot was super-fun for the moms. A local business owner Leslie Mahar donated gift bags with newborn swag for every baby.

In the end, although the tots weren't born in the best of circumstances, as the photographer told us, "Throughout everything we went through over the summer - some, so much worse than others...life goes on, and good things happen always, even during the most difficult of times."

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Cheers to that... and to these cute-as-can-be babies!

Photo used with permission of Laureen Carruthers.

Melissa Willets is a writer/blogger/mom. Find her on Facebook and Instagram where she chronicles her life momming under the influence. Of yoga.