A Pregnant Newborn Photographer's Journey- Part 3- Birth
Many of you already know the story of my sweet little girls birth, but if you don't, here is a shortened version:
On Friday, March 24th, I was sitting with some awesome friends (and clients) and showing them their beautiful portraits of their three kiddos. I mean, really, how cute are they?!
As I'm sitting at their kitchen table, I felt a dribble but I ignored it. Now, if you're a mom, you know what I'm talking about. These things happen sometimes and this WAS my 4th pregnancy. So I continued on admiring these awesome kids and chatting with their equally awesome parents. But then it happened again about an hour later. And it kept happening overnight. I ended up going to Reston Hospital Center on Saturday evening with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law (I was with them when I was told to go to the hospital) to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid.....and I was. They told me that since I was over 34 weeks, they were going to admit me and induce me in order to try to avoid infection. As much as this WASN'T my plan, I knew that it was what was best for my baby and for me, so off to labor and delivery we went!
Once I was all settled in, I sent a message to Blaire and Jamie which included a selfie of me in my hospital gown. They immediately began making plans to come and see me, with cameras in tow. This post is going to be more image heavy because they were shot over an entire day. Also, I can't narrow it down any more than this without losing parts of the story.
Before I get into the images themselves, I wanted to say that I am eternally grateful to have these moments forever preserved in photographs. This is my last baby and I wanted to make sure to document as much as I could. Why? Because births are similar to weddings. They are highly emotionally charged and one of the biggest days of your life. The result? Tons of adrenaline (and in the case of birth, possibly drugs) and a hazy memory of the day as a whole. So, I wanted to document the birth just like I had my wedding documented- from beginning to end.
Again, I am so thankful that I had Blaire and Jamie there to help me achieve this goal! I'm going to start with Blaire's images:
(Photo credit to Second Ave Photography until otherwise noted.)
My husband pushing Jamie around on the rolling stool. Birth doesn't always have to be serious business! We spent quite a bit of time sitting around chatting and waiting for the Pitocin to do its thing.
This is one of the many reasons why I married my husband. No matter what is going on, he can always make me laugh.
Contractions are no joke.
This is my AMAZING sister-in-law, who is also a L&D nurse. She was incredibly helpful throughout my entire stay at the hospital.
Push time!!
At 7:52pm, Miss. Ashley Grace was born at 4lbs 12oz and 18.5in long.
Mama snuggles are the best!
Seth walking with Ashley down to the NICU.
Now I'm going to share Jamie's images from the day:
(Photo credit to Jamie Romaezi Photography)
The kids came to see me before Ashley arrived. Tyler was REALLY uncomfortable with me being attached to tubes.
Looking at the menu of all of the food that I couldn't eat. The circled part on the back is the liquid diet menu. It was pretty sparse, so I decided to daydream about what I would eat once I had given birth.
Blaire doing her thing.
What's funny about this picture is that Ashley still (8 weeks later) almost always has her hands by her face. It's funny the habits that form that early on in life.
After Ashley was settled into the NICU, my parents brought me a pizza. I was so happy!!
After Ashley was born, I knew that she would need to go to the NICU, but I had no idea what that would feel like. I'll talk more about that in the next part of my series. Stay tuned!
