As a photographer who loves to capture the emotional story of life’s milestones, you can’t get anything more significant or emotional than photographing a birth. From the effort of mom to bring her baby into the world, to the loving support of family, and capturing the first moments as baby meets it’s new world… it’s truly a magical time.
Which is why I was honored to have the opportunity to tell the story of Stevie-Lynn’s birth.
Mom, Amanda, has watched my children numerous times. She is also a photographer and I knew how much she would appreciate the documentation of this special day. She already has a beautiful series of images she took herself (with the help of her mom) each week of her pregnancy to track her progress.
But Amanda’s due date came and went. Apparently, Stevie-Lynn had decided that it was much nicer to hang out inside mom. So, it wasn’t until ten days later that I received a text to say that Amanda had woken up from a nap and was 9 cm dilated. That was my cue to head down to Marshall Birth Center in Placerville, where Stevie-Lynn finally joined us about five and a half hours later, close to 10:30 pm. The tears of joy and relief I captured on Amanda’s face as she held her daughter for the first time are moments I will never forget.
Some words from Amanda about her birth experience: “I am very blessed to have had a great support team in the delivery room, and fabulous nurses. I managed 38 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing, dodged a c-section by 7 minutes and even had a scare when we lost her heart rate towards the end. Praise God everything turned out and Stevie-Lynn is very healthy and strong, scoring an 8-9 on her Apgar test. I am so very happy and blessed to have my baby girl in my life!”
Amanda’s parents, Jodi and Steven along with her sister Amy and a nurse and family friend, Leni, were present and I also loved capturing that story of them supporting Amanda throughout the experience.
Thank you to Amanda and her family for sharing this intimate and special time with me and my lens. And welcome to the absolutely perfect Stevie-Lynn!
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If you are thinking about birth photography, I’m sure you’re filled with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation both about the birth experience and what will be captured by a photographer. It’s important to know a couple of things about how I capture births. First, I always speak with moms ahead of time to learn about their birth plan, how I will fit into that, and what kinds of shots they are (and are not) comfortable with. Secondly, for blog posts like this, I always share the post with mom before publication (as I did here with Amanda) to ensure that she is ok with the photographs I have chosen. I remove any that moms would rather not share and, of course, will post nothing if that is her wish also.
