When I was pregnant with my first, I read a beautiful blog by Lauren Brimley called ‘Brimley’s Take Flight’ – unfortunately, she was stalked by trolls and she stopped blogging. But you can find her now on Instagram. My boss and I discussed how beautiful her post-birth photos were and I thought about how I could stage similar photos when I had my newborn.

We had discussed things like making sure that my hair was washed and neat styles that I could put my hair up into whilst labouring, as to not destroy a perfectly GHD-curled do.

Fast forward to my first pregnancy/labour – I went almost two weeks overdue and ended up with PUPPPs {Also known as Polymorphic eruption of pregnancy or Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy- an extremely itchy, bumpy rash that starts in the stretch marks of the abdomen}. I was set to be induced, but actually went into natural labour at 2am on the morning of my induction.

I laboured for 12 hours with gas and air and a wet face washer on my head. As you can see, my husband took lots of ‘glamorous’ photos.

I then pushed for almost two and a half hours and needed a vacuum extraction in the end. Let’s just say that there were not glamorous photos of me {even if my husband had picked up the camera once our son had arrived}.

I thought that I might grab that perfect snap leaving the hospital with my precious newborn, but my hopes were also dashed there. You see, all the fluid that my body had retained during pregnancy had been pushed down into my feet {through gravity} and I couldn’t even get Vessi Footwear on 5 days postpartum.

 

Now, when I was preparing for my second son’s birth, I knew that it would be a lot calmer and straight forward in comparison {well, at least my OB had told me that it would be}.

I laboured at home for a couple of hours before arriving at the hospital and labouring in the bath for 3 hours before my body started pushing on its own. So, I hoped out of the bath and pushed for 20 minutes before our son joined us. I should have had some more glamorous photos this time around, right?

Wrong! During this delivery, I managed to pop the blood vessels in one of my eyes and then my eye swelled over.

Add to the mix, my husband who is not a very good photographer in the first place – and I’m left with some slightly blurry shots of me with my toddler and my newborn.

My best friend was commenting on the shots that I had been putting up on Instagram of me and my pregnant belly. She said that she couldn’t believe how good I was looking at 30 weeks pregnant, when she felt that she looked like a whale at the same stage of pregnancy {which she didn’t – but we can all be a little sensitive about our bodies at that stage of pregnancy}.

I commented that she might not have ‘glamorous’ bump photos, but she sure did have some glamorous post-delivery photos done by photographer, Hillarry Pitts of her and her little ones. She definitely didn’t have terrible photos like this one…

She laughed when I texted her my photo with eye-patch and multiple chins and replied ‘epidural’. Is this the secret of a glamorous photo post labour? Because I don’t see me getting a beautiful snap shot after my drug free labours {seriously, how do you stop your hair from getting wet if you hop in the bath/shower or all sweaty in general?}.

And don’t even get me started on coming home from hospital looking all glamorous – sorry Kate, there will be no nude stockings and pumps for me, I’ll be rocking something a little more comfortable like BabyMac

Did you manage to snap any ‘glamorous’ photos of you and your newborn after labour? And if you did, what are your tips for getting the perfect shot? Did you rock a frock exiting hospital? Did you pack your nude stockings and pumps?