For about the past month or so, I've been a distracted mom. A distracted wife. A distracted business owner. 

You see, about a month ago, I had a nursing-related issue... mastitis. Moms, you know all about this. Either you've had it or you've heard about someone who has. It's the bane of a nursing mother's existence. Luckily, for us, it's relatively easy to treat usually. Here's the thing. After treatment finished, the pain went away, but the lump didn't. 

Cue my anxiety.

Has this always been there and I just didn't know it???

And so began the diagnosis process. First step was a mammogram. 

They found something. Cue even more anxiety. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Of course they found something! There's a lump there! 

Round two... an ultrasound and follow-up. Which was today. 

Y'all. Between the time I got the phone call that they found something and the time I went in for my ultrasound, it was a mere 5 hours. It was the longest five hours of my life. My brain, despite all my best efforts to be logical and play the odds, which were in my favor, kept going to the dark scary place. What if it's something malignant. What if it's spread. What if I leave my babies when they're still babies. 

I got LUCKY. It's not a tumor. It's a nursing related issue. I'm okay. There's not even anything that needs to be done about the sizable lump that has been this aching worry in the back of my head for days and weeks. But between the time I found it and the time, TODAY, that I found out it's nothing, I realized how important my memories with my kids are. For me, but more importantly for THEM. God forbid we leave them. What do they have left to remember us by?

This isn't some guilt being laid out by a photographer trying to drum up business. This is a plea from a MOM who just had the scare of her life. Take the photos with your kids. BE IN THEM. Take all the photos you can. Because one day we really will leave them. Hopefully that day doesn't come until they're grown and they have a lifetime of memories with us and no longer need us, but just in case, and even so. TAKE THE PHOTO. 

This photo will always be super important to me. I wanted to document my time nursing my littlest little, just in case I wasn't able to anymore. Just in case my breasts went from being something taken for granted, used to nourish my sweet babies, to being the source of an illness that could take me away from them. It's a reminder to never take ANYTHING for granted. 

So take the photos, everyone.