‘All my pregnancy photos are selfies’: The unspoken ‘cost’ of being a solo parent

When Lucie Ferguson was pregnant with her daughter, she had a sobering realisation: there would be “no one” to capture the experience and take photos of her with her child.

“I don’t have a partner at all – Daisy Lu is donor-conceived. There’s no opportunity to have any memories captured,” the Byron Bay mum, who is a solo parent, told nine.com.au.

“All my pregnancy photos are selfies. Some photos were captured by friends and family, but it was mostly selfies. That occurred to me during pregnancy: this was going to be a different road for us.”

Ferguson, the founder of jewellery brand Babyanything, said photos with her daughter are important because those memories will be captured forever, even after she’s gone.

“I lost my mum, and that is so just still so gut-wrenching, but the only thing I have of her are photos,” she said.

“It was really important to me to provide as many photos for my daughter as I could, because I treasure every single photo I have of my mum and I.”

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Determined to have more photos of herself with her daughter – without having to take them herself – Ferguson reached out to her friends in a candid Instagram post.

“I posted a Story saying if any of my friends were out and about with myself and my daughter Daisy Lu, if they could just take a picture of us together,” she said

“I didn’t want the only memories that I had from when she was a little baby to be selfies.”

The response from her friends and strangers alike was overwhelmingly positive.

“I had really beautiful comments, even from complete strangers,” Ferguson said.

“All of my friends said, ‘I’ve never thought about that, thank you for sharing’. Then I had close friends of mine actually say, ‘Noted’ or, ‘Done.’”

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It’s an aspect of single and solo parenting that isn’t always openly discussed – and Ferguson isn’t alone in her feelings.

UK-based content creator Amelia Smith recently shared her own experience via TikTok, telling her 1.2 million followers about the “sad cost” of being a single parent.

“One sad thing about being a single mum, apart from the obvious that you wouldn’t think about, is I don’t have any photos of me and my child, because there’s no one here to take them,” she started the video.

“Ninety-five per cent of the time I have my child, it’s just me and her, there’s no one there to take photos of us.

“Unless I set my phone up, I actually don’t have any captured footage of me and my daughter.”

Smith said the last photo someone had taken of her and her daughter, who is 16 months old now, was when her daughter was a baby.

“Now I want to make a conscious effort to ask people when they’re around me to take a photo of me and my child,” she said.

“A PSA to my friends, if you’re ever around me and I’ve got my daughter, please take loads of photos.”