Mother takes “newborn” photos of adopted 13-year-old son!

While some children have many pictures taken of them when they enter the world, this is not true for all kids. This was especially not true for Latrell Higgins.

According to Today.com, Kelli and Daniel Higgins adopted Latrell and his sister Chanya two years ago.  The kids were 10 and 5 when the family received the call from social services looking for a place for the kids. The Higgins family opened their home to Latrell and Chanya even though they already had five children and were expecting their sixth.

Recently the family found out that Latrell wished that he had newborn pictures of himself. Kelli Higgins, a photographer, set out to change that. That night, she posted on her photography facebook page:

So today the Higgins family were sitting around the dinner table talking about anything and everything and the subject of newborn photography came up… my 13 year old adopted son announced that he wished he had newborn Photos of himself! My funny 12 year old daughter thought it would be brilliant if we “recreated” the shoot with our now 13 year old son! We all started laughing at the idea of Latrell in all those cute newborn poses…. so tomorrow that is exactly what we are going to do!! Lol!!!!

The next day she posted the results with the caption: “Here’s my sweet not so little Newborn! His name is Latrell and weighs 112lbs ;)”

It’s only been a few weeks, but now the picture has gone viral.  Reading through the comments that have been flooding her Facebook page shows that this story has touched so many people – parents who have adopted, children who are adopted, and those who love children.  Some families who were going to adopt newborns are considering the option of adopting an older child because of this picture.

Kelli views this as a way of showing that older children also need to be adopted and loved:

I am completely humbled this morning after realizing my “newborn shoot” with my adopted son Latrell has been shared so many times! I have been reading all the comments by people who don’t know Latrell and myself and I’ve been laughing and crying all at the same time. I feel this has been such a fun way to spread the word about adopting older children and that they really are just “big babies” needing a mothers love. We are never too old to desire love and security and parents!! Thank you all for your sweet loving messages and comments and thank you for sharing my photo.  Love Kelli