It's exciting, nerve-wracking, overwhelming, amazing, and miraculous all in one. I am beyond grateful for the life inside of me. I feel like I still must have weeks and weeks to go, yet suddenly I'm counting down the days in single digits! Where has the time gone?! I have LOVED being pregnant. I have loved being connected so fully to this wriggly little baby... I just can't fathom the fact that soon it's going to be on the outside! Sure, there have been times when I've sat eating dry crackers at 3am 'cos I can't sleep, times when my big bump has got me wedged between the supermarket checkout and the trolley, times when I've laughed so hard that it's turned into inconsolable tears, many times when I've thought the baby's boney little bum and foot pushing out so hard on my stomach are actually going to poke a hole in my side. And many times in the first 18 weeks that I fertilized a patch in the garden with, ah, surprise spew.
But those moments for me have been happiness. My pregnancy has been super smooth and I still feel really good, which I am so thankful for. I loved shooting weddings throughout and was super blessed with awesome clients over this last season! I am so aware of how lucky I am... so aware that some people desperately want to be pregnant and can't, lots have hard and complicated pregnancies, and far too many go through the worst times imaginable losing their precious babies. I have been through all of these things with friends in the past 9 months, which has been incredibly difficult. Because of this, I've been so grateful for every crazy shape that I've watched my stomach morph and wriggle into, and for every single day that I've carried this baby.
People keep asking if we are 'ready'. Ha! I'm pretty sure nothing is going to prepare us for what is to come. But we are ready to try. Ready to try to attempt this parenting thing... with all the joys, struggles, mistakes, tiredness, and happiness along the way.
But those moments for me have been happiness. My pregnancy has been super smooth and I still feel really good, which I am so thankful for. I loved shooting weddings throughout and was super blessed with awesome clients over this last season! I am so aware of how lucky I am... so aware that some people desperately want to be pregnant and can't, lots have hard and complicated pregnancies, and far too many go through the worst times imaginable losing their precious babies. I have been through all of these things with friends in the past 9 months, which has been incredibly difficult. Because of this, I've been so grateful for every crazy shape that I've watched my stomach morph and wriggle into, and for every single day that I've carried this baby.
People keep asking if we are 'ready'. Ha! I'm pretty sure nothing is going to prepare us for what is to come. But we are ready to try. Ready to try to attempt this parenting thing... with all the joys, struggles, mistakes, tiredness, and happiness along the way.
Oh. my. goodness. We're actually about to have a baby. It's obviously happened trillions of times before, but woooah... a new little human is going to enter our world sometime in the next few days/weeks. One that we are solely responsible for. One that we will fall in love with more than we can ever imagine now. One that will provide more challenges for us to overcome than we have ever known. One that is going to change our lives completely and utterly!
Are we grown up enough for that?!
Are we grown up enough for that?!
So where to from here with business?
I'm 'officially' on maternity leave now (...basically I'm 39 weeks tomorrow and I've gotta try really hard to completely stop!). It's been harder to get to this point than I thought... turns out when you are self-employed, you've just gotta keep going until the work is done. But all client work is finished, my Iris Award entries are in, and I'm forcing myself to slow down now. Funnily enough, everything I desperately want to do to 'relax' until this baby comes is focused around working on my own personal photos. Nesting urge?! What's that?! Pffft, I don't wanna clean, I wanna play with my neglected photos!!
I plan on having about 6 months completely off to spend full-time with our wee bubba. I desperately want that quality family time, and will do my best to keep that work-free. We will get back into things as we decide we can... we are taking on an extremely limited number of weddings early next year, and I'm looking forward to getting into more portrait work in 2016! We also have a few thoughts and ideas about potentially doing a little bit more mentoring or teaching. In the meantime though, we want to put family before business, so I won't be attempting to keep up with emails for the first couple of months. If you want to enquire about wedding photography for beyond March 2016, feel free to email through with as many details as you can about your big day, but please bear with me if it takes an age to get back to you.
I just want to say a HUGE thanks to you all for your support and encouragement and for generally just being awesome! I will miss you all and will probably pop back reasonably often... I will definitely introduce you to our new bundle whenever he or she arrives anyway!
But over and out for now! I'm off to feed this baby some chocolate... that's what it needs, right? Peace and love xx
I'm 'officially' on maternity leave now (...basically I'm 39 weeks tomorrow and I've gotta try really hard to completely stop!). It's been harder to get to this point than I thought... turns out when you are self-employed, you've just gotta keep going until the work is done. But all client work is finished, my Iris Award entries are in, and I'm forcing myself to slow down now. Funnily enough, everything I desperately want to do to 'relax' until this baby comes is focused around working on my own personal photos. Nesting urge?! What's that?! Pffft, I don't wanna clean, I wanna play with my neglected photos!!
I plan on having about 6 months completely off to spend full-time with our wee bubba. I desperately want that quality family time, and will do my best to keep that work-free. We will get back into things as we decide we can... we are taking on an extremely limited number of weddings early next year, and I'm looking forward to getting into more portrait work in 2016! We also have a few thoughts and ideas about potentially doing a little bit more mentoring or teaching. In the meantime though, we want to put family before business, so I won't be attempting to keep up with emails for the first couple of months. If you want to enquire about wedding photography for beyond March 2016, feel free to email through with as many details as you can about your big day, but please bear with me if it takes an age to get back to you.
I just want to say a HUGE thanks to you all for your support and encouragement and for generally just being awesome! I will miss you all and will probably pop back reasonably often... I will definitely introduce you to our new bundle whenever he or she arrives anyway!
But over and out for now! I'm off to feed this baby some chocolate... that's what it needs, right? Peace and love xx