Over the past two years motherhood has looked different, especially when I compare it to my days as a new mother nearly seven years ago. Floods of visitors came to the hospital, my mum stayed in my house for three weeks to help with the baby, and I opened my door to many friends to show off our newborn.
With restrictions still in place in most countries and largely in hospitals, unfortunately I couldn’t have the same audience as I did before. Being expats and having no family living nearby, as soon as I had given birth to my beautiful daughter Sunny, I was pretty much alone. My husband James was by my side for the cesarean, though after I had settled into my room he had to go home to our older sons.
these photos are so special, not only for you and your husband, but for family and friends who can’t be there
I spent those first fragile days nursing our baby, resting, and slowly walking around the room rocking her to sleep, in a little bubble, just the two of us. These raw moments pass by so quickly and under the hormonal haze I know these times can be easily blurred or forgotten. So when Anna proposed to capture us, within the first 48 hours after I had given birth, I knew these photos would be special. Not only for me and James, but for the family and friends who were not allowed into the hospital or were overseas at the time.
Still in pain and exhausted, Anna entered our room with the most calming presence. Urging me to do as I would without her there, I continued to care for Sunny as I heard the shutter snap away on her camera. Photos I have had taken in the past were posed and seemed to have a filtered perspective of what new motherhood looks like. Anna came in and captured me in a raw and real light. One I had never seen myself in.
photoshoot at the hospital: capture your most tender moments as a new mother
Somehow through her lens the veil was lifted and in my maternity diaper, leaking breasts and all– I was seen. Now to have these moments frozen through photos for me and Sunny, and for our memories feels like such a gift. We are urged through social media to portray our lives and motherhood as perfect. Only ever capturing and uploading the moments where we look and feel our best. In these first 48 hours after a painful surgery, I was sore, sleep deprived and lonely, yet I want to remember all of this. I know when I am healed, Sunny is older, and I feel more like myself, I will forget exactly what those first days in hospital were like. We hang onto the good, the noteworthy, yet for me now as a third time mother, I want to keep all the moments in my mind. Now I can do so with these photos, for Anna has captured our most tender moments as a new mother and daughter together.
Guest post written by Jules Theis
Photos by Anna Leak
