I recently went to see Adriana, a mum of two girls and a step-son, at St Michael's Hospital. Her youngest girl, Adriana-Amy is currently staying there with various difficulties. When Adriana was 5 months pregnant, she had an anomaly scan which showed that her baby had a blockage within her digestive tract. The scan wasn’t completely clear, and Adriana and her family were left unsure whether or not there was a problem. A repeat scan later in the pregnancy seemed to show that there was nothing wrong. Adriana gave birth to Adriana Amy at 36+6 weeks. After the initial assessment, it became clear that Adriana Amy had imperforate anus, a condition that makes it impossible for her to pass stool naturally. A colostomy was performed immediately after birth. This is where a surgeon creates two small openings in the abdomen and attaches a pouch to the intestines to collect any waste. Adriana has to change this pouch frequently to prevent any build-up. Adriana-Amy will have two more surgeries. Her first surgery will be performed at 6 months to create an artificial opening. They will leave this until she is one year old and then perform another surgery to connect the opening to her intestines. The pouch will be used to collect waste up until this time. Adriana is devastated that this has happened. She struggles to understand why, especially after having a healthy first child. She asks herself "What did I do wrong in the pregnancy to make this happen?". Adriana-Amy appears to have a horseshoe kidney which could potentially be the reason for this, but there is no definite answer. Adriana is conflicted and expressed her fears for the future of her baby. She feels too scared to be happy and connect with her baby. She has many visitors and often feels pressure to look and act happy and together. To be able to keep up appearances is very brave and she describes herself as “sad but smiling”. Adriana is currently making use of the accommodation offered by the charity ‘Cots for tots’ who put up families of babies in NICU for free. She is from Gloucester and although the rest of her family comes up to visit her, she spends most of her time alone with Adriana Amy. If there was one piece of advice Adriana could offer to mums in a similar situation, it would be this: “Be strong. It does not help [her] if you are not strong. Believe everything will turn out okay.”
As you may know, I have recently started offering free of charge photoshoot sessions to parents of those with babies currently in the neonatal units across Bristol. These mums have also been telling their NICU stories to me for this blog, so, I figured if I was going to tell all of their stories, I should start by being brave and finally telling my story. (Well, Jess's story... well, my family's story.) This post is about Jess's arrival and I will eventually post about her whole NICU stay. Without delving into too much detail, I had a bit of a tough pregnancy. Jess was a rainbow baby and so I spent much of the pregnancy worried about if I would get the chance to meet her. (You can read more about my pregnancy with Jessica here.) I was also very ill with a bad tooth infection. I was unable to receive a CT scan to get the tooth removed due to the pregnancy, and the infection cause me to have a lockjaw. I was therefore unable to eat anything solid at all and unable to sustainably eat anything that wasn't very fine liquid (no lumpy soup, porridge etc). There were a few scares with 'false' contractions from about 20 weeks. I had around six scans in those first weeks. I ended up in the hospital with the contractions right down to three minutes apart twice before 33 weeks and so when I really was in labour at 33+5 weeks, I didn't really believe it. I think that would sum up the whole labour, birth and NICU experience. I just didn't really believe any of it. After many tests, a drip to try and stop the contractions, false alarms, steroids, pethidine, more false alarms and a lot of nitrous oxide, Jess was finally here. I say finally but even after 30 hours of labour, it felt far too soon. I was lucky enough to be able to hold my baby after she was born. I then passed out from exhaustion. When I awoke, I was alone. No husband. No baby. I'm sure I'd been told a million times that my baby was very little and would have to be taken to the neonatal unit. I'm sure my family had told me they were going to take my son home. I'm sure I'd been given all the correct information. However, that was not how I had felt. I felt panic stricken - where was my baby? I was told that Jess would be in the special care unit and I was taken, in a wheelchair, to meet her. (After 30 hours of labour apparently weak legs and fainting are a given!) She was not in the 'special care' room. I was left in the corridor, waiting to see my baby. It turned out she had been moved to the high dependancy unit with some 'grunting', which apparently meant breathing problems. When I finally got to see her, she was not in a little cot, like the one I remember my son being in. She was in a see through glass box. An incubator. She was attached to lots of wires with tubes up her nose and in her mouth. I would find out what these were all for, but at the time, they just seemed scary. She was so tiny. She was so fragile. But she was alive. I could finally breathe. It was a long journey from that moment to finally coming home for good, but it was a battle I was willing to face. Perhaps not one I was ready for, but I knew I would do whatever it took to take care this tiny human being. At least that was a feeling that felt familiar - it's called being a parent! Thanks for reading - I will post about Jess's recovery and journey soon!
For those of you that haven't read about my project so far (Part 1), I just thought I would recap... A rainbow baby is a baby that comes after a loss. I was absolutely over the moon when I discovered that we were expecting our rainbow baby and I decided to start this Rainbow Pregnancy Project soon after. To be perfectly honest, it gave me something to look forward to and hold onto in a time of uncertainty. Of course, I wanted to do an announcement photo that was still linked in with the project but slightly different as I'd already done the first two photoshoots by the time we announced that we were expecting. By the time we got around to green, my husband was much better trained!! He no longer moved around while the picture was being taken, meaning there was less motion blur. As my little boy was getting older and starting to run around a lot more, it became a lot more difficult to keep him entertained and reasonably still to get a photograph out of him. Lots of singing about tractors was required to achieve this image! I took these two images when the boys had decided they had had enough of modelling - which was about five minutes after I started shooting! This blue shoot was much more relaxed, as my son was napping for a while and there was no pressure to get the photos done as quickly as possible! Our son was finally catching on to the fact that there was a baby in there and loved to kiss and point at the belly to tell me! He also learnt that the baby had 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' from the song. Every so often he'd give me a cheeky grin and joke that the baby had a 'hat' or a 'coat'. He found it hilarious. As I got further along, the items that she supposedly had became more and more extravagant and he was eagerly awaiting to see the slide and the motorbike that were clearly hiding inside mama's belly! We were very lucky to get this last shoot in. It was the morning I went into labour and it had actually been a while since the last shoot as we kept putting it off because we didn't have time! Our son lasted a grand total of two minutes before he decided he was too overtired and needed a nap. We literally managed one photo with him. I took the picture of me while my husband carried him off to bed. As much of a challenge as this project has been, I am extremely glad I did it. Progressing through each colour made me feel more confident in the pregnancy and gave me a better connection with my baby. At the start of the project I found myself creating moments that i wanted to capture, and by the end of the project, I was enjoying moments that were worth capturing. Not only has this changed the way I view photography, but also the way I value each moment. There was a long wait between going into labour and actually taking Jessica home. I will go into more detail about that journey at some point, but for now, I hope you enjoy the photographs I managed to take when we arrived home.
To give you a little bit of background information, Jessica was my third pregnancy. We have a little boy, who is nearly two and was born at 38 weeks and we sadly lost a baby very early on in pregnancy last year. With my son, I had 'braxton hicks' contractions from about 28 weeks. They were very painful and got very close together at around 30 weeks with just 6 minutes between them, however, they did trail off and I kept him in a bit longer! When I eventually did have him, it only took 40 minutes for me to dilate from 5-10cm and labour was a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes. It was a massive shock to everyone and I haemorrhaged straight away afterward - this spontaneously stopped so no medical intervention was needed. With my second pregnancy (who we believe was a baby girl), I knew something was wrong and started feeling crampy, contraction-like pains so we went into hospital and had a scan. The scan showed everything to be fine, but sadly we lost her that night. All this history made me slightly paranoid with this pregnancy. I had many reassurance scans at the beginning and only calmed down (all be it slightly) when I began to feel her move. I was only 13 weeks pregnant with her when I began to feel her move and I don't think she ever stopped wriggling! Every time we went to see the midwives they mentioned how 'active she was being'. She was keeping me up all night and kicking me quite hard during the day, but I didn't care as I knew this meant she was doing okay! It was around 27 weeks when I had the first 'false alarm'. I lost a fair amount of blood and I started to have contractions. When I went into hospital, I had some observations done and then waited to see the doctor. Considering how fast my son came, I was starting to get a bit nervous when it had been an hour or so and my contractions were only a few minutes apart. Eventually, I actually managed to fall asleep, and by the time I woke up the contractions were much further apart and I was discharged. When I woke up in the morning of Sunday 21st January, I was excited to do my last photoshoot in the afternoon before maternity leave. I had planned to have a shoot in the morning but that had been postponed for various reasons. My husband then reminded me of our rainbow pregnancy project, and that we had just two colours left and I hadn't done one for a while! We managed to convince our son to do about one picture before he got restless and wanted a nap. I then just about managed to get a few of just me and a few with my husband before I started feeling cramps. I then lost some blood and decided to call the midwife just in case. She told me she'd like me to come in as soon as I could get childcare for my son. My husband pretty much took over trying to sort out my photoshoot for the afternoon (and has been a lifesaver, taking over most of my admin tasks since then) and I tried to stay calm and get through to my brother and his wife to see if they could look after our son. With the number of false alarms I'd already had, I wasn't actually sure weather or not this was it!
Being my totally crazy self and as it was the last one, I decided to have a go at doing the photoshoot. Of course, I did let them know what was going on and that I would have to leave for hospital at some point! It was probably the most fast paced photoshoot I've ever done but the little one was very cooperative (as she always is!) and it went really well! Anyway, I was still having contractions and when I noticed I was loosing more blood I let them know I had to leave and rushed straight to the hospital. As has happened before, no one was sure if they were 'real' contractions and we waited for the doctor. It turned out, I was dilated, but without going into too much detail, they still weren't sure how for I was or if it was even labour. They decided to treat it as preterm labour and gave me a first steroid injection, which helps the baby's lungs develop enough for breathing. I was whisked off to the delivery suit and put on a drip of '' to try and stop contractions and essentially labour. After a little while and still contracting, the paediatrics got set up and I was told the baby was going to come any time now and we were given some more information about what to expect when she arrived and that she would be taken to NICU almost immediately. They stopped the drip and we waited. My contractions slowed down and nothing happened. Slowly all the people that had come into the room left and they put me back on the drip After some time and a lot of convincing, I agreed to take pethidine to get me to sleep. By morning, the contractions had started to trail off and so they decided to take me off the drip again to see if my body was settled now and if I could go home. The contractions started up again and within a few hours, I was told that I was ready to have the baby. They got everything ready again and to be honest I felt a bit more ready this time to. Again, nothing. Another false alarm. It was completely heartbreaking. On the one hand, I wanted to keep her inside for as long as possible and get her to term so that she could be as healthy as possible. On the other, I couldn't help but get excited to meet my new baby and it was bitterly disappointing to believe that she was about to arrive and then not to have her in my arms. They gave me the second steroid injection and we waited. After 30 hours in labour and at 8cm, the midwife called in a consultant and they decided to break my waters. It was complete agony but finally over. They placed my baby in my arms and she cried; this was a great sign as it meant her lungs were working. They weighed her and then suddenly she was taken away, as had been explained, to go to NICU. Below are some pictures of Jessica in the incubator in the NICU. I will be writing a blog about our stay there shortly! Please feel free to share your own birth and/or NICU stories. So, I've not been quite as good at posting weekly blogs at the moment. The lead up to Christmas has been busy and as some of you may have noticed, I'm (or at least my bump is) starting to get a lot bigger. Something else I hadn't been doing so well at recently was taking photos of my son. There was never a good moment. All my SD cards were always full. I just didn't have the time. All these excuses were running through my head and I just kept leaving it be. If you've been putting off anything recently with the little ones, whether it's all sitting down for a meal together or just telling stories before bed, find a way to fit it back in; it's completely worth it. Our little ones only stay little for so long and it's the moments we share together that last forever. I finally felt inspired again after a photoshoot the other week and I'll tell you how I pushed past all the excuses and decided to make it work, even when I didn't think it would! It started snowing half way through a photoshoot the other week, and, after the photoshoot finished, I decided not to put my camera down just yet! I'm so glad I didn't as I'll treasure the pictures I got of my son in the snow for a lifetime. I setup the exposure on my camera as I would for an outdoor photograph and I was getting lovely pictures of Finley, but not of the snow! It was falling pretty fast at this point and I wasn't picking it up, so I decided to push the limits and see what I could do. I kept my aperture wide at f/2.8 and upped my shutter speed to 1/1000 sec. To compensate for the exposure I pushed my ISO to 1600, which my camera actually copes with quite well. Initially I wasn't sure but soon enough it started producing this lovely snow effect, which actually gave me a fast enough shutter speed to catch my son smiling which is a first. I had to do the entire set using my focus manually as the lens doesn't cooperate so well with tiny snowflakes flying around and gets easily confused, focusing in the wrong place. This wasn't such an issue as I am used to manual focus and it's pretty similar to photographing the 'splash' part of a 'Cake Smash and Splash' session! I've been dying to get some more pictures of my son's eyes recently, but he doesn't like keeping still. At 19 months old, I'm sure many of you are familiar with this type of toddler! He also doesn't respond well to having a lens close to him and he likes to run away, so my usual 50mm wasn't going to cut it! Instead I used my 70mm-200mm at about 90mm to give myself a good amount of space and used a lens extension to allow myself to focus a bit closer! The next part was to catch his attention for long enough to get a good shot. To do this, I had to come up with something different, as he quickly gets bored. I have glass sliding doors which lead to my garden and Finley has recently discovered how to open and close all sorts of doors. I decided to crouch down inside and tap on the glass to get him interested. To my delight, he saw me straight away and after saying 'mama' a few times, came over to help me out. I then managed to get my shots, and decided to get a few of his hair too, as my husband keeps talking about getting it cut! Finley has always loved bikes, and always points at them whenever one goes past. Whether he's in the car, or on a walk, at a playgroup or anything else, he will always notice if there is a bike around! So, as well as going on lots of walks, we try and get him out on his trike as much as we can. (He is actually wearing a harness for now and feet are on a separate step to peddles.) I don't usually bring my camera, as 'around the block' doesn't really make for good scenery, or that was my excuse at least. Instead of making more excuses, I decided to get a bit more creative. I worked with what I had, used basic composition rules and actually came away with some lovely photographs of my son, which, after all, is the aim!
It is becoming increasingly popular for parents to give their babies an entire cake to eat for their first birthday. The reason we call it a smash is because of the way the babies tend to flail their arms around and demolish the cake with delight. Don't worry, the more mess the merrier! We are expecting this and are prepared - I'll explain about the 'splash' part later. The setup for the cake smash is completely up to you. I offer various props, pink or blue bunting and a choice of vinyl tablecloth floor and backdrops. The main thing that I would ask you to supply is the cake. This can be anything from a homemade, store bought or professionally designed cake. Pictured above is a beautiful cake from Grab and Go Sandwich co. As you can see, the design is absolutely stunning and they offer a huge variety of made-to-order cakes. The birthday girl enjoyed diving in and her mum also enjoyed a few sneaky nibbles! The cakes pictured below show a scrumptious store-bought cake on the left and a beautiful homemade cake on the right. With any photoshoot involving children, parents always have the same worry: what if my child doesn't enjoy it? My approach is always to be baby-led and I take extra care to make sure baby is never overwhelmed or uncomfortable. You are always welcome to comfort and feed your baby whenever you feel is necessary. We generally start the cake smash part of the session by photographing the setup and aim to get a few shots of the babies posed next to the untouched, pristine cake. Usually, not being allowed to touch the cake to begin with builds up enough curiosity that by the time the baby does go for the cake, they are very eager. Around a third of the way through, we bring in the wooden spoons. These can really help a baby who doesn't like getting their hands dirty (yes, they do exist)! They also give babies that aren't so interested in eating the cake a chance to bash it up with the spoon. From trying to feed the baby the biggest piece of cake possible, to giving a teething baby some relieve and something hard to chomp on, the spoons are very multi-purpose. Once the baby has started to make a bit of a mess and are nearing the end of their concentration span for the smash, it is a great time to get some pictures of their hands, feet and features. It's a interesting twist on my usual close up and macro images as the colours and messy context give a beautifully personal element to the photographs. The 'Splash' part of the shoot is a nice, cosy bubble bath. This is great fun and the babies tend to love it. It has a totally different atmosphere to the cake smash and give your baby a chance to relax and clean up. We also have bubbles that we can blow to entertain babies, which make for great pictures. As with any photoshoot, my main priority is always baby safety. The tub we currently use most frequently fits a maximum of two babies, and each baby will need their own 'spotter'. A spotter is a designated adult that is watching them at all times and is physically able to prevent them slipping or jumping out of the bath. Parents, friends and relatives are all fine for spotting. Also included in the session is a few portrait photos, family photos and closeups. For the portraits, you can either have a birthday themed setup similar to the cake smash setup or choose one of my other photoshoot backdrops. I generally take the closeups while baby is being dried and changed, but this can vary from session to session. The end of the session tends to be the best time to include any family shots as the baby is generally quite cuddly and happy to be held by parents and family members.
For those of you that don't know, photography wasn't my original art form and although it was always a big part of my creative projects, I didn't realise just how passionate I was about photography until I saw that my photographs captured the most precious moments in my life. I started out as an artist specialising in painting and portrait sketches. These ranged from small A6 watercolour paintings of flowers to giant abstract paintings and mixed media pieces. My first project which seriously involved my photography skills was essentially a textiles project which ended in a series of A1 pastel drawings. I carried with me an old analogue camera, a digital canon 1000D and a few kit lenses all borrowed from my parents. My knowledge of photography was all through brief research projects relating to different photographers and artists. The model was a close friend of mine who had absolutely no experience modelling. I applied her makup myself and made her dress from scratch. The project went surprisingly well and I was able to easily explore the lighting and posing techniques with my subject. The way the photoshoot flowed came very naturally to me and I never had trouble with what to try next and where to shoot. Perhaps this is a mixture of my creativity and my natural bossiness! It was during my foundation degree in Fine Art that I really discovered just how passionate I was about using photography to capture moments and express ideas and emotions. My professors themselves were painters and while they appreciated photography as a means to an end, they didn't seem to understand it as a stand alone art form. While this was happening during my time at college, I started covering family events and portrait sessions elsewhere. These seemed to all go really well and it was addictive - I couldn't help but want to do more! For my final project on my foundation degree, despite my best efforts to appease my professors, I just had to include my photography. The project was all about impulse and motion. For this, I had done a sports photoshoot using very skilled cyclists and skateboarders that happened to be on the same course as me. I also incorporated my Fine Art painting skills and the exhibition went very well. I had a very individual art piece that was abstract but still showed the skill and hard work that went into the shoots. I was still creating, and involved in, a lot of painting and designing projects when I started doing photography on the side. I really found my element when my son, Finley, was born. That's another story, perhaps one that will be featured in one of my future blogs - stay tuned!
I've been keeping this project to myself for a while, but now that we've announced our pregnancy I couldn't wait to share it any longer! I have been subtly posting clues to what I've been doing so far on my facebook and instagram pages. Here are some of the pictures: For those of you that don't know, a rainbow baby is a baby conceived after a loss. Sadly, we lost a pregnancy just before our son's first birthday. I wanted to be able to include that baby within our pregnancy photographs this time around. A lovely way to do this, I thought, would be to have a rainbow theme and dress in all the colours of the rainbow (the ones that don't look horrible on me at least) across the different photoshoots. I started with red. Finley, our one year old son, didn't really understand what was going on and had no idea where to look. I had to do all the manual camera setups, including focus, without a subject matter! The timer for the photographs seemed to delay and was a bit temperamental and Matthew, my husband, has the shortest attention span of any adult I've ever met. Let's just say we didn't manage a whole family picture that time around. Despite what seemed like a total nightmare at the time, I think we came away with some lovely images. I skipped orange - NOT my colour! Actually, I didn't really think yellow was either but the photographs turned out pretty great. Finley thinks that 'baby' means 'belly button' and he loves to show off knowing where things are. So we asked him where mummy's baby was and he reached straight out for my tummy! In the photograph of just me and Finley, Matthew fake sneezed repeatedly next to the tripod, which Finley found hilarious. We had to wait for Finley to have a nap to get the shot of me and Matthew. Even for a photographer, the curtain shot was a difficult one. I had to manually set the focus on Matthew and then run behind the curtain, hoping neither the curtain, nor Matthew, made a move. To separate up the photo-shoots, we made an announcement photograph. Finley did not want to stay still for this, so we were all looking in different directions and jumping after him. I loved the photo of Finley giggling while we hung him upside down, but you couldn't see the t-shirt and that was the main point of the picture. We are looking forward to our next photoshoot which will be green! What do you all think of these photoshoots? Has anyone done anything similar? Any other pregnant mummies with rainbow babies?
The most important aspect to consider when choosing a photographer for your most precious and important little bundle of joy is whether they are going to handle your baby safely. Most of the photos you see on a professional photographer's website will be edited a little bit. This means that if a pose looks a little unnatural or dangerous, the likelihood is that it isn't what it seems and probably is a composite image. A composite image is an image that is created from merging one or more photographs and manipulated to look like one photograph. One has to be especially careful with newborn photography as babies under about 1 month old are unable to hold their heads up. A big red flag is if a photographer attempts to 'balance' a neborn to quickly get the shot. Personally, I won't do poses such as the 'froggy' pose (moving the baby's hands to look like they are holding their own heads up) without a trained assistant. I will write a seperate blog specifically for newborn posing later on, but for now lets have a look at some basic techniques for safely posing babies.
On top of lone or unstable objects There are two ways we can go about achieving this look. Either with baby being fully supported by mum or dad, or with her not being on the object in the first place. One way to do this is by manipulating and merging multiple images together as described above. The other way to do this is to take a seperate picture of baby in the correct position and completely replace the background to look like baby is sitting on a chair alone when actually they are on a mat on the floor.
At the end of the day, you will get a feel for what is safe and what isn't. If you are doubting your photographer's ability to safely pose your baby, then make sure you are vocal about it as you are the one hiring them. It's always better to err on the side of caution and to not let anyone do anything with your baby what you wouldn't feel 100% comfortable doing yourself at home.
Sadly, 95% of them end up on the floor. I think the lesson here is to keep them as treats and only offer small portions. He used to put about 9 of them on my sons tray and let him have at them!
If you aren't a professional chef and are more of a beginner in the kitchen like me, then I have a few useful ideas for you! From the moment your child perfects their 'pincer grip', they will be going after the tiniest objects they can find to put in her mouth. Great foods that they will love in this stage include peas, sweetcorn, raisins and blueberries. In fact, this will work with any fruit or veg if you cut it up small enough to peak their interest. A great way to incorporate this into a meal is with rice, pasta or scrambled egg. Proteins are important for our little ones as they help to maintain healthy muscles and bones. Salmon, turkey and sausages are always popular options in our house and are very easy to cook. Salmon contains essential omega-3 fatty acids as well as a variety of other vitamins. You would have thought that sausages would be a rather fatty option, but we have found that Heck sausages are made of 97% pork and are delicious! Make sure to cut the sausages small enough so that they are not a choking hazard. Turkey is a lifesaver in our house as we don't eat chicken. My husband makes the most amazing turkey pie and fills it with loads of vegetables. Turkey thigh meat is relatively cheap and flavorsome and it stays moist more easily than turkey breast. My husband likes to finely chop spinach, kale and parsley and add it to the pie too. It is hardly noticeable, but adds a nice herby flavour as well as a great superfood health boost! I recently asked some other mums of toddlers what they give their little ones for snacks/mealtimes. Here are a few of their ideas:
|
Clare ShapcottPhotographer Archives
December 2021
Categories
All
|