We only have two seasons here in Charleston, SC. We have the summer, which actually takes up 3/4 of the year and is always very hot and very humid. The other 1/4 of the year, we have an unpredictable collection of the other three seasons.

Just a few short weeks ago, we had more snow accumulation than we had seen here in Charleston in decades. This week, we had beautiful, mild days with temperatures in the upper 60s. 

I take advantage of these days as much as possible because you never know when the temperature will drop and the cold weather will return. 

This week, my kids spent some time on our back patio drawing with sidewalk chalk. I took my camera out with me just in case some photography inspiration hit. 

As I sat watching my kids, I found myself fascinated by Bug's hands. You see, Bug was a CHUNKY baby. She had rolls inside of her rolls. You'd never know it now though. She's tall for her age and lean. There's not a single chubby roll left on her. There's something about her hands though. They aren't chubby, but they still seem so small - a reminder of how little she is still. Covered in stamps from dance class earlier that day and adorned with two snap bracelets left over from her little brother's birthday party, she was the perfect picture of my quirky little fairy.

Then, of course, Bubba came running through barefoot, jeans covered in a rainbow of chalk dust. He was every bit my wild, messy boy.

I couldn't just pick one, so I submitted both photos to the project this week. I've really enjoyed this challenge so far. It's been fun forcing myself to look outside of traditional portrait opportunities. I'm looking forward to what next week has in store - both from my camera and the weather.

See more posts from the Life in 52 challenge here.

I love milestone portrait sessions. It's so fun to photograph these little ones as they grow. Out of the different milestone options, I think 6 month sessions are my favorite. Babies this age are often starting to sit up on their own and their little personalities really start to shine through. Plus, they make the BEST faces!

If you remember this little guy's 3 month milestone session, you'll see that his parents decided to keep the baby suspenders theme going. I was certainly not disappointed. I adore baby suspenders and I'm sure you can see why!

Photographers will often tell you that their most difficult subjects are their own children. I am no exception. My daughter loves having her photo taken; however, she doesn't want to listen to my directions and posing suggestions. She has her own ideas that don't always photograph well.

My son is difficult in a different way altogether. His 2nd birthday was this week, and I wanted to have a little photo session with him as I do with my children every year. Toddlers can be challenging to photograph anyway, but at least with clients, they are curious about the silly lady with the black box in front of her face. Getting them to look at me and my camera isn't too difficult. My own son is so accustomed to my camera being out that he probably views it as an extension of my arm. He doesn't care to look at the camera because he's just not that curious about it.

I knew I needed to go with a more lifestyle photography type of session. There's no way I was going to get him to sit still for more traditional portraits. He absolutely loves tractors and trucks and anything with wheels, so I really wanted to find a place in Charleston, SC that fit that theme. I originally planned to take him to where my husband works for his family's business because they have tractors and a backhoe. The timing and weather just never worked out for that though. I then remembered that the company where my husband's work buys their tractors is only minutes from my house. I asked my husband if he thought they would let me take our son's portraits there. He was confident they would and recommended a few employees to seek out when I got there.

The next day, after dropping my daughter off at school, we headed over to see the tractors. Not only did this wonderful company allow me to take Bubba's portraits there, but they also gifted him with a little toy tractor. He was in HEAVEN. He made this face and said, "WOW!" more times than I can count.

We wandered around for quite a while just letting him explore to his heart's content. I occasionally posed him a little or said something silly to get his attention and make him laugh. For the most part though, I just followed him around and captured his adventures.

These photos also worked out perfectly for Week 3 in the Life in 52 challenge. I edited this photo in both black and white and color but couldn't decide which I liked more. I posted both on my Facebook page and asked for opinions. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of COLOR. 

See more of my photos from the Life in 52 challenge here.

At the end of Part 1 of this birth story, my support team was packing up and heading to the hospital.

I continued to have contractions all the way to the hospital and during the long walk up to labor and delivery. I was hooked up to a monitor and relieved to find that my baby boy was handling all the chaos perfectly.

Because it was a Saturday, I was assigned to whatever resident was on call that weekend. A medical student was sent in to question me and check my cervix - almost fully effaced, but only 1 cm dilated. It felt like a punch in the gut to hear that after all I had been through in the last day and a half, but then I remembered what my doctor had told me. I mentioned my concerns about cervical scarring to my nurse. She quickly browsed my medical history and said, “You know what. I think you might be right.”
We sat in a small room for a while waiting for the on-call resident to arrive. During that time, Bubba was moving and dancing in my belly. At one point, he rolled so drastically that everyone in the room saw my belly shift and the monitor dropped his heartbeat for a moment. He was back on the monitor pretty quickly and we continued to wait.

The resident arrived and almost immediately launched into her plans to admit me and start a pitocin drip. I stopped her and told her I wasn’t sure I wanted to be admitted yet. I simply wanted to discuss my options if I were to choose to stay.

I expressed my concerns from my first birth where pitocin was unable to make the necessary changes to my cervix. The nurse relayed my thoughts about cervical scarring in relation to my medical history. The resident simply waved away our concerns and continued to push pitocin. I finally had to tell her that I would not consent to jumping straight to pitocin because I didn’t believe it would address the actual problem. I told her I would rather go home. This turn of events did not sit well with her. It was clear she was used to women who came in and blindly did as they were told. She didn’t know how to handle someone who actually expected her to answer questions and explain her reasons for the choices she made.

She resorted to scare tactics at this point. She pointed out that my blood pressure had been slightly elevated when I arrived and tried to tell me I might be in the early stages of pre-eclampsia. It took all my strength not to laugh at her. She had clearly not looked at my chart at all or she would have known that I had experience with that particular condition. I simply smiled and told her that I had no swelling, no headaches, no dizziness, no prisms in my vision, and my blood pressure had been perfect throughout my entire pregnancy. I believed my blood pressure was more likely due to the fact that I had been awake for almost 36 hours laboring, and I was anxious about being in the hospital. I also reminded her that I had already given a urine sample when I arrived, and she was welcome to test it for protein. Of course, my urine sample was perfectly healthy.

I had gotten under her skin and she went for the low blow. She looked at the heart rate strip coming from the monitor. She said, “The good news is it looks like your baby is handling all of this well… except there’s one reading back here that concerns me. He could be showing signs of distress.”
The nurse in the room turned and looked at her like she had three heads. She said, “The baby rolled over. We all watched her belly shift. The monitor just dropped him for a second. The whole rest of the strip is perfect.”

The resident replied, “Maybe. But what if it’s not? What if he’s in distress and you go home and something happens to him? You’ll never forgive yourself and we don’t want that to happen.”

I just stared, incredulous. I imagine my mouth was probably hanging open. I had heard stories of doctors preying on the most vulnerable part of a woman’s spirit - implying that she was endangering the life of her baby in order to coerce her to follow orders, but I thought these stories were rare. I never imagined it would happen to me, yet there I sat. I wondered what would happen if I had been a frightened first time mom who automatically trusted anyone with a medical background. To what would I have consented? What would I have allowed that resident to do to me had she convinced me that I was putting my baby's life on the line? However, this was not my first rodeo, and I was furious.

At this point, the resident stepped out to speak with her attending. I talked with my husband, mom, and doula about everything that had just transpired. I probably should have fired that resident on the spot and demanded another doctor, but I didn’t. I stood up to her instead.

When she returned, I informed her I would only consider staying and being admitted if I were given an opportunity to eat and if we used a foley bulb instead of pitocin. A foley is a catheter with a balloon at the end. It’s inserted into the cervix and the balloon is filled with a saline solution. The balloon puts pressure on the cervix, forcing it to open. I was hoping it would break up any scar tissue present.

The resident, of course, tried to argue, but I held my ground. I also informed her I wanted to speak to her attending myself. The attending was wonderful. She thought the foley was a great solution, but she just wanted to make sure I knew we might have to revisit the pitocin discussion if my contractions didn’t progress after the bulb was out. I was fine with that.

My husband ran downstairs to find some food; I was admitted, and the foley bulb was placed. My doula went home to rest, and my best friend came in to be an extra support person. Thankfully, another resident took over after that. She was younger and seemed a little anxious, but she was, at least, kind. The nurses absolutely saved my birth experience. They were all lovely and supportive. I felt like I had my own personal cheering squad.
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I was not anticipating the blinding pain the foley added to my contractions. Ripping through scar tissue is every bit as painful as it sounds. I think I could have handled it if I hadn't been so exhausted, but I was starting to lose control. My sweet husband did a great job talking me through contractions. He was trying to talk me out of an epidural because he knew how much I wanted to do this naturally even though it was killing him to see me like that. 

In a calm moment between contractions, I told him I appreciated what he was trying to do, but it wasn't even about the pain anymore. I needed sleep. There was no way I was going to make it through this birth without some sleep. The anesthesiologist had just gone into surgery though, so I had about 2 hours of coping with the foley contractions before he came in. After a total of 38 hours of natural labor, I got an epidural and was able to take a nap.

An hour after the epi was placed, the foley bulb came out and I was dilated to 5 cm! The epidural had slowed my contractions though, so I consented to a low dose of pitocin to get them moving again.

I stalled a little at 5 cm, but the baby continued to descend. My doula came back, and I let my epidural wear off some. I could still move my legs; they were just heavy. With the help of my support team, I was able to get into some more upright positions to help labor along and then the doctor nicked my bag of waters to get it started trickling. After trying some different positions, I told everyone to get some sleep. I pushed the button to give my epidural a boost, and I went to sleep a little after midnight. My mom and doula later told me they don't think the epidural did much because I continued to groan through contractions in my sleep, but apparently exhaustion just took over.
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The second resident woke me up at 3 am to tell me that I was at 10 cm and +3 station. It took a few seconds to register what they had said and when it hit, I began to cry. I was actually going to get to push! 

​Little did I know, I still had a ways to go. The horrible resident returned for the pushing phase much to my chagrin. The first hour of pushing was mostly trying to get me into different positions to move the baby down. The epidural was wearing off again, but at first, I couldn’t feel enough to push effectively.

The second hour of pushing, I was delirious. I was so tired I kept drifting off between contractions. God only knows what kind of weird stuff I said. I vaguely remember something about a horse and a bikini. I’m hoping I didn’t say anything out loud. If I did, no one told me.

In hour three, I could finally see his head and that gave me renewed energy to keep going. It was about this time that I was informed I was developing a low grade fever. I knew I needed to get my little guy out so I pushed with all the energy I could muster.

Fifty hours after those contractions woke me up at 4 am, three of those hours spent pushing, my sweet baby boy was born on January 17th. Despite reminding the resident that I didn’t want to cut his cord right away, the first thing she did once he was out was grab a clamp for his cord. My doula and I were both yelling at her not to clamp it. She rolled her eyes before putting the clamp down.

I immediately started yelling, "GIVE HIM TO ME! LET ME HOLD HIM!"
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My mom and husband both later told me that was the moment when they realized just how much anxiety and brokenness I had been holding onto from Bug’s birth. It wasn't the joyful cry of a new mother wanting to see her baby, but one of desperation. I needed to hold him first. I needed to have him placed on my chest still slimy and fresh. I needed to be the first to welcome him to the world.

​A nurse grabbed him from the resident and plopped him onto my chest. I was the first to see his beautiful face and announce to the room that he looked just like his big sister. I could never put into words the emotions running through my body in that moment. I felt victorious. I had conquered my own anxiety, my damaged body, and that terrible bully of a resident. I stood up to someone trying to abuse their power. I stood my ground and refused to allow my voice to be drowned out. I kept going when I wanted to give up.
 
My precious, perfect Bubba was worth every single second of that 50 hours. Despite all of the struggles, I think back on his birth with a sense of accomplishment.
 
He has been a whirlwind in our lives from the moment he was born. He is wild, stubborn, loud, smart, funny, and sweet. He tears through our house at full speed, only occasionally braking to climb in my lap and steal my food.
 
Happy birthday to my beautiful, blonde-haired, blue eyed boy, who adds grey to my hair and joy to my soul.

Our culture has compressed birth into those few moments when the baby is actually delivered into this world. We’re led to believe that as long as the baby is fine, then the rest of it doesn’t matter. As a birth photographer, I’m working to change this view - at least here in Charleston, SC.
 
I work to show that the journey in birth MATTERS. The delivery itself, while the pinnacle, is but one part in an entire story of a woman’s transition into motherhood. The births of my two children were beautiful moments, but they are made even more incredible by understanding what brought me to those moments.
 
Today, I will begin sharing the birth story of my second child, lovingly known as Bubba. I’ll admit it’s a long story, so I’m breaking it up into two separate blog posts. Before we begin, I’d encourage you to go back and read Bug’s birth story if you haven’t already. There will be some context there that will help you better understand my mindset going into this second birth.
 
When I was still in the recovery room after Bug’s c-section birth, my doctor came in and said, “Well, the silver lining is that you’ll get to choose your next baby’s birthday because you’ll just schedule another cesarean.”
 
I looked at her wide-eyed and simply stated, “No. I won’t.”
 
The anesthesia hadn’t even worn off yet, but I knew I didn’t want to experience that again unless it was absolutely necessary. I knew nothing about Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), but it didn’t take long before I started searching.
 
Before we even began trying to conceive a second child, I was searching for and reading as many VBAC stories as I could get my hands on. After confirming that VBAC is a safe option for most women, I was confident that I wanted to attempt a vaginal birth when we decided to have another child.
 
A few years later, after some struggles with infertility, I was finally pregnant with a baby who seemed to be sticking around for the full pregnancy.

​I continued to read books and blogs about birth in general and VBACs specifically throughout the time we were trying to conceive and my pregnancy. I realized I would need a great team around me to support me in my desire for a vaginal birth. The doctor who delivered my daughter, while a wonderful person, was obviously not going to fit with my wishes for this birth. I started asking in some local mom groups and was pleased to find many mothers who had successful VBACs in Charleston and even more who were on the same research journey with me. There are many doctors here who support VBACs and ALL of the hospitals in the area allow them. The trick for me was finding the doctor with the least amount of restrictions on my labor.
 
I found an absolutely wonderful doctor pretty quickly. She is well-respected in the birth community, and she was fully supportive of my VBAC plan. She even told me that as long as baby and I were healthy, I would be treated just like any other perfectly healthy expectant mother. Even if complications did arise later on, surgery would not automatically be the first line of response either. My scar did not make me a ticking time bomb.
 
I also hired a doula to be with me in labor and delivery. I knew I wanted someone with a more objective view to help balance the anxiety coming from my husband and mom (and myself if I’m being completely honest).
 
I continued reading and researching and discussing my birth preferences with my doctor. At one point, I came across several birth stories of women who were discovered to have cervical scar tissue. Their stories sounded so similar to what happened in Bug’s birth: regular, intense contractions that would normally be indicative of a progressing labor, but little to no cervical dilation. After reading more, I found that I have one of the primary risk factors for cervical scarring (without going into too much personal information). I brought up my concerns to my doctor and she said it was definitely a possibility. If this were an issue for me, I would find that my cervix was effacing (thinning out) in labor but not dilating (opening). *Keep this little bit of information in mind because it comes back later.*
 
My pregnancy continued to progress normally, and I found myself creeping up on my due date. In the last week of my pregnancy, I often had contractions that were regular, but they always fizzled out after a few hours. I was getting frustrated and tired because these contractions often disrupted my sleep.

​I woke up at about 4 am on Friday, January 15th, with what I thought were gas pains. It didn't take long for me to realize that gas pains generally don't come exactly 6-7 minutes apart lasting 45-50 seconds. I didn't get my hopes up though because this wasn’t the first time I had experienced regular contractions. It reached a point where I was having trouble sleeping through them, so I got up and got moving for the day. After a few hours, they still weren't going away, and they were getting more intense. They were still 6-7 minutes apart, but I was often having to stop and breathe through them. My husband stayed home from work, and my mom came over to help with the then 3-year-old Bug. After several hours, I decided to watch a movie and doze off for a while. When I did that my contractions spaced out to every 10 minutes. After resting for a bit, I got up and my husband and I walked for about a mile and a half. Eventually, my contractions returned to 6-7 minutes apart.
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Late that night, my contractions were STILL 6-7 minutes apart but pretty intense. I was getting frustrated that they weren't progressing, so I told my husband I was going to eat something and try to sleep for a while. I hoped that sleeping would make the contractions space back out like they had before so I could get some rest. Well, of course, that’s not what happened. Shortly after I climbed into bed, the contractions got closer together. By about 3 am, my husband was begging me to call my doula because my contractions were 4 minutes apart and I was on my hands and knees in bed, groaning through each contraction. I called my doula and told my husband to get some sleep while he could. When I went to unlock the front door for the doula, I found my parents (who had decided to spend the night) sitting awake on the couch. My mom could hear me back in the room and had been timing my contractions based on my cries and groans. She rubbed my back and kept me calm until the doula arrived and then everyone rallied around me to help me through.

The hours dragged on and morning came and went. My dad had taken over Bug’s care. She struggled with seeing me in pain, so he kept her away and entertained as much as he could. My contractions stayed 3-5 minutes apart and intense, but nothing we tried would bring them closer together and progress my labor. Exhaustion was setting in and I was starting to fall asleep between contractions. When I fell asleep, the contractions would only come every 10 minutes, but they were significantly worse than the contractions I had been experiencing. It was as though I had 2 or 3 contractions rolled into one. The contractions would peak 2 or 3 times before coming back down and I quickly realized the little nap I was getting was not worth that pain. I made myself stay awake and keep moving. Around lunch time, we had passed 30 hours of labor and everyone was exhausted. Doubt and defeat were beginning to creep in.
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My husband and my mom sat with me and said, "I think it's time to go to the hospital. You don't have to be admitted if you don't want to, but I think we should at least check and make sure the baby is okay.”

On one hand, I did want to check on the baby, but mostly I was frustrated and scared. Frustrated that, yet again, my body couldn't just do what it was supposed to do. Scared that I would be pushed into another surgery. I made everyone leave me alone in my bedroom, and I curled up on the floor and sobbed. I often find that I need to have a big, ugly cry before I can move forward.

Once I had my moment, I talked with my doula about the possible scenarios we might face at the hospital. We talked about what I would do in each situation and what I most wanted to avoid. I am so thankful I hired a doula for many reasons, but in retrospect, that conversation alone was worth every single penny I paid.

Once I made sure that my husband and mom knew my wishes and would support me in whatever I decided, we grabbed our bags, and headed to the hospital.

Read Part 2 here

If you read my last blog post about our big snow day here in Charleston, SC, then you know I've decided to participate in a weekly lifestyle photography challenge. I wanted to take on this challenge as a way to document more of these every day beautiful moments with my family, but also because this kind of photography really hones many of the skills I need as a birth photographer.

Birth photographers often have to work with little light or unusual light settings, which can be tricky. We also have to work around other people - finding the right angle and the right light without getting in the way. Finally, we have to find and capture the beauty in those hours and minutes without intentionally posing or creating it.

We're only in week 2 of the lifestyle photography challenge, but I am already finding myself on the struggle bus. Why? Well., there are two main reasons:

1) This week has been chaos. We are finally getting back into our regular schedule after a MONTH off. Winter break was extended due to all the snow and ice. This week, my daughter headed back to school and dance, and I have been trying to clean and reorganize everything from the holidays and the snow days. 

2) I have a toddler in my house. While Bubba (my soon-to-be 2-year-old) provides ample opportunity for adorable photos, he also happens to be pretty destructive. I would love to leave my camera somewhere accessible, so I can grab it quickly to capture a moment before it passes. However, toddlers and expensive camera equipment do not mix. I thought I might leave my camera bag out, so my camera is still somewhat available, but apparently the toddler mastered the use of zippers this week. It seems my camera bag has to stay up and out of reach for the time being.

This week's photo actually came from Bubba's rummages in my camera bag. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, editing an ADORABLE 6-month milestone session (seriously can't wait to share them with all of you), and I had my camera bag next to me. Bubba repeatedly tried to grab my camera from the bag. I was beginning to get frustrated with constantly having to pull him out of my bag when I remembered I keep one of my old point and shoot cameras in the bottom. I pulled it out and told him if he sat on the couch next to me, he could hold it very carefully. He's a pretty rough and wild little boy, so I fully expected to have to take it from him pretty quickly. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how carefully he held it and how gently he touched each of the buttons. It wasn't long before he lifted it up to his eye and tried to take a picture with it.

Thankfully, this photographer was ready with her own camera. 

As an artist, I think it's important to take on personal projects. I absolutely LOVE working with my clients and photographing their families, but I sometimes get caught up in everyone else's moments that I neglect the beauty in my own everyday life. 

This year I decided to participate in the Life in 52 project. One photo (or photo series) a week for a year. No themes or rules or requirements. It just has to be LIFE. This project is perfect for me because I love lifestyle photography. I've said it many times before, but while I love the most posed portraits I take for my clients, my absolute favorites always come from natural interactions and play time at the end of my sessions. Of course, it's also why birth photography is my specialty. Life doesn't get any more real than a birth story. 

Now in my first week of this project, Mother Nature has given me the perfect surprise: SNOW! Here in Charleston, SC, we have snow accumulation about once every decade. The last time we had snow that actually stuck was in 2010 and it was only an inch or two. This year, on January 3rd, we got 5 inches of snow! Just to give you an idea of how rare that is around here - the last time we got that much snow was in 1989!

My daughter, Bug, has been very curious about snow recently and was so excited when I told her we might get to see it. I had to warn her not to get her hopes up because it's not uncommon for meteorologists to predict snow that never comes here. This year was the opposite. We were only predicted to get 1, possibly 2, inches. We were all stunned when the snow just kept falling well past the 2 inch mark. 

When you're a photographer and you get an opportunity that only comes once every 10 years, you get out the big camera!

Without further ado, here's my official Week 1 photo for the Life in 52 project: Bug seeing snow for the first time in her life.

Of course, I can't just share one picture and be done. So enjoy a few more photos of my little family's experience with Charleston's big snow day!