Undoubtedly one of the most horrific events a person can go through is giving birth. It can be physically and mentally exhausting, stressful, and painfully painful to give birth to a child. But when it’s over, the only emotion left is joy. A girl named Carmel was born to Thaise De Mari. While lying on the operating table after her C-section, she posted a selfie to Instagram with her newborn child and her spouse. Nothing matches meeting your child for the first time, and this real, beautiful moment captured in time serves as a reminder of that. The entire family is beaming, which is very sweet.
The new mom looked at her seconds-old baby girl and saw what appeared to be a smile on the newborn’s face. At that moment, De Mari mimicked the expression of her daughter, and that is when the picture was taken. It was a priceless moment captured forever. Writing on Instagram in Portuguese, De Mari recalled, “And suddenly the picture of my life is without production, without resolution, without worry about hair, makeup or angle! My face is swollen and crying, dad with the face of baboon and Carmel already showing in the first seconds why she’s here… to make a family happy!”
De Mari told Brazilian television network in March 2017, “My husband was registering the moment with the cell phone, they put her next to me, and he approached us to do a selfie. He said it looked like she was smiling! I looked at her and also saw the same thing. We looked at the phone and smiled, ‘imitating’ her face.”
Newborns don’t grin as a response to stimuli until they’re at least a month and a half old, according to research. Given the infant’s age, De Mari’s expression was most likely a “reaction grin,” a reflex comparable to sucking or rooting. It’s a theory that the new mother agrees with.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t until three months after the C-section that the photo went viral. However, many people have responded positively to the photograph, with De Mari telling Brazilian news site ZH in March 2017, “It’s nice to have so much affection from people we don’t know.” However, not all of the attention has been favorable.
“Unfortunately people have preconceptions every time,” De Mari told Brazilian news outlet ZH. “We get comments about the C-section, about the selfie, saying it’s a fake photograph.” She added,
“People even mock my daughter’s name. I was annoyed, so I stopped reading.” Instead, De Mari encourages well-wishers to visit her on social media.
De Mari said: “It’s wonderful to see that everything came out alright. It’s a new life. It’s tiring but very pleasurable. Even at dawn when we’re exhausted, it opens up a smile that makes up for anything.”
A photo is worth viewing because of the grin, but three smiles make THE PICTURE worth a thousand times more… So adorable… Congratulations to the mother and father. What a lovely image! May Carmel bring much more light into your life, and may he bless the entire family.
