Baby Miller - Brisbane Newborn Photographer
I had a little moment when this gorgeous family arrived. I had to double check I wasn't in the middle of a dream come true.
First, big sister Ellie jumped out of the car, and her ruby red locks were flowing, a little curl at the ends, and I nearly squealed out loud. You see, I love red hair so much!
Then, hold me in case I swoon, little 3 week new Miller emerged, and you won't believe this... he had red hair too! Already!
With a flurry of gushing photographer, we headed into the toy room for Ellie to have a play while we got through the important stuff.
Once underway, Ellie was hilarious. Mum and Dad were both having a cuddle with Miller (Mee-yah!) and Ellie was not happy about being left out. She was standing right at their feet, pulling on clothes to be picked up and join in. Which of course we did right after we got the photos with just Miller.
A cuddly, laying down sibling photo was next up. Except that Ellie was having none of that, so we moved to plan B and set Miller up on the beanbag for Ellie to come give him kisses and snuggles in her own space.
Without any warning she was suddenly done, she turned around, too 3 steps, half turned back to us and said "Ta Ta" before spinning on her little heal and marching out of the room, not once looking back. It was the sassiest, cutest thing I had seen all week!
With Miller now taking centre stage, it was important to help him to sleep. And the problem was that he was not looking like he was in much of a mood to sleep.
We cranked the heater up, (and by "cranked it up" I really mean, we "turned it on") and soon the room was really toasty warm with the white music pulsing and in no time flat, Miller eventually dropped off into a peaceful snooze.
This was a particularly special session for me to capture as Miller and his family had not had the easiest journey earth-side.
After a fairly standard pregnancy and an uncomplicated labour, it was only moments after he was born that Miller was diagnosed with an imperforate anus.
This means that his small intestines had not developed all the way through his body, and he was immediately rushed off to surgery to have a colostomy (stoma) formed.
Thankfully the stoma bag is not permanent for Miller, it was just a necessary aid until he was big enough to undergo another surgery to line everything up as it should be.
The great news is that Miller is now 9 months old and has already had his stoma reversed, so he is doing incredibly well!
Miller is doing great, a true little champion who despite this unexpectedly rough start to life is a happy, peaceful little boy, already stealing hearts like nobody's business!
To honour his unique story, I included some story telling imagery into his newborn session.
The first image made me teary as I was creating it, as it drew me back to my own emotions of being a mother with a newborn baby in special care. His mum was given some lovely heart shaped cloths, one for her to wear next to her heart, the other always with Miller in his crib in the NICU and special care. This is a way for babies and mothers to connect to each other, the mothers scent always with her baby even if she cant be.
The next image we made was incorporating all of the pieces of medical equipment and personal gifts from the hospital such as the blue beanie gifted by staff in the NICU. I arranged these as a rainbow above him because I liked the symbolism of the rainbow, a fresh start with a happy outlook after a storm.
This last story image is showing Millers journey through the pregnancy. I used photoshop to remove his stoma bag from the images that represent him in utero. This image particularly strikes me because it shows how nobody had any idea of his condition until after he was born, and despite the surgery and medicines he is so chilled out about it all.
Next we moved on to more standard newborn portrait imagery showing off how crazy cute this red haired little guy is!
Since we had some a lot of creamy photos we decided to mix things up a little and did a dark green set as well, and with his fiery red hair the green looked incredible with him.
A dark grey was up next, and when I put the little bonnet on his head both his Mum and I make audible "Awww!" sounds!
I snuck a little cuddle in before settling him into the final setup (another light coloured one) and as I was swaying and shushing him he opened one little eye to me and smiled. My insides totally melted and I could have passed out from the amount of sweetness that little moment.
It was such a wonderful, joyful morning with this gorgeous family and I was so honoured to have been able to capture their beautiful family portraits as well as some story images about Millers big journey in his short life.
