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Dad deployed overseas reunited with wife in touching maternity photo

Posted at 6:39 AM, Apr 14, 2017
and last updated 2017-04-14 08:45:47-04

MABANK, Texas – He may be some 7,000 miles from home, but a photographer’s creativity brought a Texas soldier to his wife’s side in a maternity photo.

Navy Corpsman Wesley Bedwell, 21, found out that he was being deployed overseas just a month after his wife Nicole announced in November that she was pregnant with their child, according to Inside Edition.

Nicole said it was hard enough to go through the pregnancy without him, so she reached out to Traci Fugitt, owner of Traci Lynn Photography, and said she wanted to find a way to include him in a maternity shoot documenting their baby’s journey.

“She had seen the pictures where the spouse was faded into the picture, and asked if we could do something similar,” Fugitt said. Together they decided to split the photo, one side showing Nicole in a field of Texas bluebonnets, and the other with Wesley in Japan, kneeling in dry grass while reaching toward her.

The photo, which has since been shared widely online, left Nicole speechless, she said.

“It’s been really emotional for me to have my husband gone my whole pregnancy, so the fact that Traci was able to include him in my maternity session was very emotional,” she told Inside Edition. “We will never be having our first child again. He’s my family, so having him included touched my heart. It made me happy.”

In the end, Wesley was allowed leave after Nicole developed complications and doctors decided to induce labor early. In fact, Wesley even made it home in time to see baby Pyper enter the world, around 6 a.m. on Thursday, Fugitt said.