Portraits of sleeping parents-to-be capture the most unguarded, intimate moments in the lives of growing families

Russian photographer Jana Romanova, 29, was inspired by all her friends falling pregnant
Captured 40 sleeping parents to be for 'Waiting' project - as there are 40 weeks in pregnancy

One photographer has captured her pregnant friends - and complete strangers - asleep in their homes for 'Waiting', a project exploring growing families.

'A couple of years ago, I suddenly noticed that almost all my friends were about to become mothers and father,' says Jana Romanova, 29, from St Petersburg, Russia.

'I wasn't really ready for this unexpected change in my life, because I couldn't imagine it without spontaneous travels and night talks about our amazing future,' she explains. Jana decided documenting the process might help her make sense of it.

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'My favorite people were about to become real adults with a lot of responsibilities, and they all took the change in a very different way, acting like a happy family in public and sometimes crying in fear of the prospect when nobody was watching.

'I started photographing my friends, their friends and, in the end, people I don't know, in the most personal and intimate place - their bedroom - early in the morning while they were sleeping or drowsy.

'It's a time when people don't care about their appearance, being natural, and looking at the photographs I tried to understand what kind of roles a young man and woman play in their new family.'

As she wanted her photos to be as natural as possible, the photographer sometimes waited until five or six in the morning to get the perfect shot. The bird's eye view was achieved with Jana standing on a ladder, giving the viewer an intriguing vantage point.

Over two years, the photographer took 40 photos of 40 couples, with each picture representing a week of pregnancy.

In this way, Jana was able to capture feelings and emotions from all stages of pregnancy - from the moment when a couple realise their little partnership is expanding, to the very real prospect of a baby coming into their lives.

'From when he hasn't yet realised he's going to be a father, and she is alone with the knowledge of the small life growing inside her, to the stage where he becomes a child himself - rejecting this new responsibility, and, after that, coming to a moment where he awakens and, slowly, they start to play equal roles in the process of waiting for their arrival,' as Jana describes it.

'They are waiting not only for a child to be born, but also for their entire life to be changed in 40 weeks.'

Subjects are all young Russian couples aged from 20 to 30, asleep or dozing, taken between 2009 and 2011 in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.