Hello lovely, a small trigger warning – I mention my rainbow baby but do not go in to any description of what happened.

Well.. you may be thinking ‘Lucy, I couldn’t give two buggeries why you started it’.. but I think it’s quite important for me to get it out there as to why I do this because it’ll help you realise that I am here for YOU. You are my why.

Now I’m not shy in admitting that I struggled a LOT post-partum with anxiety – it is and has been very, very overwhelming at times. During the first 6 months, I’d find myself visualising awful things happening all of the time and, to begin with, I didn’t want to leave the house if I could help it. I do want to say though that I’m not all doom and gloom at all and I want to reinforce the fact that whilst I was terrified at the time, I can wholeheartedly say that this has been the best year of my life. I am SO overwhelmed by how much I love my daughter that it makes sense that all of my other emotions are oversized too. But where’s the book giving you the heads up that could happen?!

I had the support of my incredible husband who has been so patient, so understanding and so supportive with every single thing that I’ve done (I know I’m very lucky in this as not all men are the same so shout out to him). I struggled to let anybody, even him who I trust with my life, do anything to begin with because I needed to know that my baby was safe and in my arms every second of every day. Now, I’ve not mentioned this very often because I know it can be a trigger (and if you are reading this and this is also a part of your journey, know that I am here for you any time, you are amazing and you deserve every ounce of support and love you have) but my little one is my rainbow babe. It took us almost 2 years to have her – I could NOT be more grateful and I thank my stars every single day that we have her but following the loss of my first babe, anxiety and fear overwhelmed me and then intensified when we got pregnant a second time. I naturally thought this would go following the birth of my little one but instead, it merged itself with the normal anxiety following giving birth and turned itself in to a super-anx (worst super power ever) that I struggled to part ways with.

It’s not ALL my crazy brains fault though.. I won’t list them all now but there are a few notable examples where I attracted a strange type of folk when out and about until I learnt how to fake a resting bitch face.

When was 3 weeks old, I was in Boots on Coney Street buying some form of never-ending baby stuff and instead of going to the self-serve like usual, I went over to the lady at the till and as I walked over to the till, I turned the pram facing the other way so I was stood at the side of the pram. Now, it was pretty chilly so I had the hood up on the pram and you couldn’t see in. As I was chatting to the woman, her eyes looked over my shoulder which made me turn to look round and lo and behold, an older lady had put the hood down on the pram and had both of her hands on either side of my babe with her head down in the pram saying “hello little one” like she was going to pick her up. As I turned, I shouted at the woman and she glared at me like I was the one in the wrong before pottering off.

 The ladies in Boots were fantastic and consoled me until I’d calmed down enough to get home but for any new mum, this is absolutely bloody horrifying. Lord knows what she was thinking but I’ve found that the elder generation of people don’t really get the whole.. ‘not touching a stranger’s baby’ thing so maybe she just felt within her right to.. I don’t know.. either way it set me up pretty poorly and I wouldn’t go in Boots for a long time.

Fast forward to 3 months post-partum, I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder (pesky thing) and so to give me a break and let us all rest up as a family, we decided to take a short trip to an all-inclusive resort in Lanzarote (in hindsight, this was a pretty big deal but we all needed some sun after everything so I’m glad we did it). Whilst we were there, I was barricading all the doors shut with bags and using the pram as a makeshift alarm bell, by balancing rattles and noisier toys on the hood, because I was sure she was going to get Madeline McCanne-d out of our hotel room by the old woman from Boots.

Don’t get me wrong, my girl doesn’t sleep so I think a huge part of my fear was part exhaustion/delusion – but mix that up with postpartum hormones and the Boots fiasco and you’ve got yourself a pretty on edge Lucy 😂

Now fast forward a few more months through lots more of that to when we went for our own family shoot with the INCREDIBLE Suzi Bird down in Bristol. We’d had a right morning – I was already emotional because, well, that’s me these days and we’d had zero sleep the night before. After months of planning and buying outfits though, we got half way to the studio before realising I’d left half of my littlun’s clothes hung in the wardrobe at the hotel and so commenced my dramatic sob, causing the makeup that took over an hour to do to be wiped off and leaving me sat in the car sobbing and blabbering that I wasn’t going in the photos, everything was ruined and apologising that I wasn’t good enough because I couldn’t even remember to bring an outfit (obviously overlooking the fact that we had managed to keep our gorgeous girl healthy and warm and fed and loved for that whole time.. hormones..). WELL, we get in there and Suzi immediately puts me at ease, got me a cuppa, finds me some gorgeous clothes (better than the rubbish I had hung up at the hotel) and just turned it all around for us. Half way through, I sat back and Suzi rolled a little white ball over to my girl and she picked it up.. she’d never played with a ball before yet she picked it up one handed, smiled and (tried to) roll it back.. Do you remember me saying I was emosh? Well, it got me. I sat there and just had a moment of “oh my god, she’s okay”. It sounds dramatic but I PHYSICALLY felt the fog lift. A wave of relief genuinely came over my whole body as I realised she’s here, she’s healthy, she’s happy, she’s a whole little person and she’s thriving. The pain that I’d been through before wasn’t going to happen again and she wasn’t going to be taken away from me by anything or anyone. She’s here and she’s perfect and I get to see her grow and learn and figure out how to do things like pick up a ball. I am a better person for having been to that shoot because I dread to think how much harder things could have gotten had I not had that moment!

Well, I think I’d got a bit over the top and fangirled a little too hard when I was with Suzi (if you read this… I’m sorry for coming across like a mad woman 😂) and she asked if this was something I wanted to do. The IMMEDIATE answer was yes. Yes, yes and yes some more.

 If you’ve read my first blog post you’ll know that photography is something I’ve always done for friends and family but that conversation is what made me really think about doing it for real.

I came away and said to my poor husband, who just wanted to eat his sausage roll in peace, that I wanted to give every single woman the experience that I just had. Every mother and father deserves that moment of peace, calm and judgement free delusional chat after giving birth to air out all the hard that they’re going through.

I became a woman on a mission and within a week, I was all set up and clinging on to anyone I knew with a baby to help me get my portfolio built up and shared with the world and now here I am! Sharing incredible moments with incredible people. There’s been more sessions than I can count where I see others having that moment, having that special memory that they’re going to treasure forever and I get goosebumps watching it. I’ve cried with some of you, I’ve laughed with all of you and I’m just so grateful to every single person who steps into my studio, trusting me enough to open up and share your stories.

So that’s it, folks. I had my moment and it sparked something in me so powerful that I HAVE to share it with you all. I want you to have your moment. You deserve that moment. Whatever you’re going through, know that I am an open book holding a completely judgement free, calm and peaceful space for you and your babe.

Love,
Lucy x