Our pregnancy was something we had looked forward to and planned. It wasn’t quite what we had expected with a global pandemic putting us into lockdown shortly after sharing the news with loved ones and us not being able to attend the scans and antenatal appointments together, but it was a cherished time and we feel lucky that we didn’t receive any news that would have been hard to stomach on my own.
At the beginning of my pregnancy I was quite sick with ‘morning’ sickness, and the push toward working at home enabled me to continue working more comfortably rather than facing a commute that was becoming harder to manage.
At our 20 week scan I was told I had Placenta Previa, which is quite common but would be something that could have affected my options of a natural birth if this had not moved by 36 weeks. Due to this and the Bracken Unit still being closed for refurbishment due to the pandemic, I was quite late in deciding what my birth preferences were. I opted for a water birth and was very lucky that when the time came, the only pool on the labour ward at Musgrove had just become vacant.
The actual labour was far quicker than I expected and was 2 days before my due date and the first day of my maternity leave.
(Baby is safely on the posing bed in this image and NOT actually suspended- SAFETY FIRST!)
At 7am I woke to my waters breaking, but I did not have any contractions. I called the hospital for advice and due to not having contractions at the time, they said to have some breakfast and a shower before coming in to get assessed. By 7.30am the contractions began and very quickly escalated, by 9am we were on our way to hospital and the pains were becoming hard to talk or walk through.
Due to the covid restrictions I had to enter triage by myself and my partner had to wait outside. About 30 minutes after arriving my partner was allowed in after being told I was already 7cm dilated. I was moved to the birthing pool room on the labour ward and was in the pool by 10.20. At 12.30 our ‘little’ 9 lbs 13 oz baby boy was born. Finley James. It was an amazing experience and we were soon ready to return home.
We had already made contact with Karen prior to the birth after seeing some of her work being recommended on a local Facebook page, we knew straight away she was who we wanted to book. The booking process was easy and after the birth we were soon able to confirm the actual session date with Karen.
On the day, despite amended protocol, Karen made the environment very relaxing for Finley and us, and took her time to ensure he was comfortable. This allowed us time to feed him and get him sleepy for the perfect pictures. There was plenty of choice with props and set ups and our favourite parts of the session included seeing how good the photographs were coming out on the camera and how good Karen was with him. This confirmed that we had made the right choice of photographer. Karen took her time to make sure everyone was happy and I would always recommend her to other parents.
Thank you so much to this lovely family for taking part in these pregnancy and birth story’s blog posts and for your kind words, it means the world :)
Karen x