Internet flips out over couple's bizarre maternity shoot with cat: 'Stupidest crap I've ever seen'

Posting maternity photos on social media has become a common practice, but this Colorado couple may have taken it a tad too far. Lucy Schultz and her partner Steven recently shared series of photos, which featured a very realistic birth photo shoot with their kitten. And, the Internet is flipping out.

Alongside several photos, she wrote on Facebook, "On 1/10/18 we welcome our first baby kitten, a neutered male DLH. He is 22" long and weighed 6 pounds 7 oz. He is already eating solid food. Name to be announced. We are so in love."

She went on to thank her photographer Elizabeth Woods-Darby in the viral Facebook post. "Thank you @Elizabeth.WoodsDarby for capturing these amazing first moments!!" The photos feature the couple posing like a couple welcoming their first child, including sweaty faces, emotional labour snaps, and tender pictures of the kitten and even a breastfeeding photo.

However several social media users are not a fan of the photos, which have already received 29,000 likes and more than 76,691 shares on Facebook. One user wrote in the comments, "This is the stupidest crap I've ever seen," while another noted, "This is very possibly the weirdest thing I've ever seen lol."

"This is retarded and disturbing on so many levels," noted another user, while another comment reads, "Ew this is honestly gross and bizarre".

Photographer Elizabeth Darby spoke to UNILAD about the photoshoot and shared her views on the backlash it received from social media users. She said, "It was a blast to photograph. All three of us were laughing the whole time. It was a pretty quick shoot, but one of the funniest I've done in a while.

"The kitten slept through most of it and what he didn't, he purred for the rest of. He especially adored being wrapped up in his newborn baby blanket and still loves it," she added of the feline.

Defending the couple, whose the photos received much criticism for mocking childbirth, Elizabeth explained, "I think a lot of people around a certain age, all our newsfeeds and stories are about everyone having kids. This piece wasn't to mock that, not at all, but to celebrate the occasion of adopting a new part of the family, especially one that didn't have a home a week ago."

She defended Schultz's decision to shoot the photos and told the website, "We've gotten a lot of hate on us, folks saying that we're disrespecting women and mothers, but it's actually the opposite. Both Lucy and I are photographers (I specialise in videography) and have shot births and newborns and I think it's our shared delight and respect for that event that helped us craft these images in such a realistic way."