Arabella’s Newborn Shoot

The gorgeous Arabella popped along to my studio recently with her mummy, daddy and half brother for a newborn shoot. 

We used a combination of neutrals and blush pink tones and I included a couple of pretty digital composites into her gallery too. 

I asked Arabella’s lovely mummy, Anna, to share her birth story and give some advice to expectant mums which she very kindly agreed to.

Anna’s Birth Story 

My journey to motherhood was definitely not the easiest of roads but I’d love to share it as it will hopefully give some hope to others in the same situation. 

I suffer with PCOS and so it took us around 4 years to finally welcome our little miracle Arabella. The waiting and constant rollercoaster of emotions was very difficult and every month I felt like a complete failure when I saw that single blue line staring back at me every time. 

After years of test after test and various treatments that failed, we got lucky on our very last round of ovulation induction injections and managed to conceive our baby girl. Had it not worked that round we would have moved on to IVF which I luckily didn’t need in the end. I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing our early pregnancy scan at 7 weeks and the little blob on the screen with its tiny heartbeat, it was the best feeling in the world - only beaten by finally holding her in my arms after all those years.

You hear all sorts of birth stories, mostly scary - at least I did. But you rarely hear the good ones and I think I really got lucky with mine (I like to think it was payback for all those hard years). 

It was a textbook labour and happened very quickly for a first baby. My waters broke at 6am and I had given birth by 12.31 that night. There were no interventions, I gave birth naturally and the pain was mostly manageable until the later stages when I advise you to take all the drugs!! Ha I was really against taking opiates before because I’d heard it can make baby sleepy but honestly it was the best decision I made, I actually fell asleep in between contractions(!) and there seemed to be no effect on Ari as it was taken early enough in the labour. 

They placed her on my chest and I’ve never felt so much love and like the luckiest person in the world. There were so many times I thought I’d never get to be a Mum and now that I am I just feel so grateful and wanted to remind others going through it not to lose hope, it can be a soul destroying process but sometimes miracles can and do happen.

What items did you pack in your hospital bag that you could not have lived without and which items do you wish you had left at home? 

I actually didn’t stay in hospital a full night so I didn’t really use most of what I packed! Probably the best things for me that I did use were face wipes and lip balm, the wipes feel so refreshing on your skin when you’ve just been through the mill and the lip balm really helps if you’ve used gas and air as it makes your mouth really dry. I actually laughed at some of the things I packed when I got home as most of it was ridiculous- I packed a kindle! I don’t know why I thought I’d have time to read a book but for some reason I packed it- I think you only really need to take stuff like that if you’re scheduled for an induction - otherwise leave it at home! 

What’s surprised you most about life with a newborn? 

It really is life changing and you can never get anything done. It’s a full time job and everything else just has to wait. I thought I could get lots of work and chores done while she slept but that was very naive! 

What advice would you give to expectant mums?

Don’t try to plan the perfect birth or life afterwards because it rarely goes exactly to plan and you’ll just put too much pressure on yourself and be disappointed. Just go with the flow, as long as they are happy and fed the housework can wait. Enjoy every minute even when it seems hard because it really does go so quickly. 

Thank you so much to Anna for sharing her story and providing some great advice to mums-to-be.

If you would like to know more about my newborn shoots, please drop me a message and I will be delighted to go through the options.