New Shoot Photography

19/08/2026

Early this morning another tiny princess was born.

This mom is a repeat mom(did I mention how I love repeat families?) We shared the birth story of her second baby 18 months ago.
This time round, mom had no idea she was pregnant at all. One day however she looked down and saw a very strange movement on her tummy, she hurriedly called husband and told him she had better get to a doctor. Anyway, scan showed she was about 22 weeks pregnant!
Quite a shock to the system she tells me!
The estimated due date was for early September, but as we didn't really know exactly how far along she was, we were just going to see what day baby choose.

Well, baby chose a very special day. 19 August, which is also her mother's own birthday!
When labour started, mom was in complete denial, she was not ready for this baby, even if baby was. It took dad and Melissa ( Belly blessings ) to convince her it was time!
So, they came through to Aloe Tree. We were waiting for her.(and Jamie too)
A quick check from Melissa (mom wanted to be sure she really was in labour) showed that indeed the day had arrived!

Moms second baby was born quite rapidly, but as we know the 3rd babies are the wild card, and this labour was definitely a little different from last time. When midnight passed we knew baby was definitely going to be sharing a birthday with her mother!
Things then also suddenly got more intense.
Mom loved her waterbirth with her second baby, and she really wanted another, it was now time to fill the bath and mom got in.

The comfort that the water gave her was huge. My wooden spikey balls were swapped for the plastic ones as she really found those useful as well.
Soon after this moms water broke and we noticed the contractions change, so we made sure all the birth things were ready and Jamie was standing by to get the best memories.
At 2.23am a tiny little girl was born. Tiny baby, but loud voice!
This third baby was moms smallest. She weighs 2500g.
Mom also had the smallest placenta I have ever seen. Melissa, said it was the smallest she had also seen. It fitted into her hand! Small, but healthy and complete.

Mom got out of the bath and we tucked her into bed with baby on her chest. Soon after, baby started to breastfeed vigorously, and as she is such a tiny tot, this made us happy. She will be doing lots of feeding to grow nice and chubby!

What a special birthday present this mom received!
Jamie ( New Shoot Photography ) as always managed to get some beautiful photos and I got permission from mom to share this one.

Can you see the false knots in the cord?

07/08/2026

Only 4 or 5 percent of babies arrive on their EDD. Yesterday's birth was one of these!

This family was another repeat family. Melissa Belly blessings , Jamie and I attended the birth of their first son 3.5years ago. And now we were back for baby number 2.
Mom let us know early in the morning that labour had started. To avoid traffic congestion we decided to go rather than wait.(second babies generally come faster than the first one)

We arrived to find a calm mom swaying on her ball.
A very excited toddler was with mom and immediately told me he was eating Oats with blueberries for breakfast and that roosters go Cockadoodle doo, but they only have chickens!

It wasn't long after that granny came to pick up toddler so mom could focus on labouring. She was struggling a bit to find her comfort spot, so Melissa suggested the bath and filled it. When mom got in she immediately relaxed and said it was the best idea ever. Her contractions became manageable and her body was able to rest. She stayed in the water for a long time, listening to music and being fed nuts by dad.
But as in many labours, after a while she felt she needed to get out. Melissa had made the bedroom dark so spent some time again on the ball leaning over her bed, rebozo and massage helping her through the contractions.
After a while she said she was tired and wanted to try sleep. So in her darkened room we made for comfortable, got dad in close and let them rest.
Contractions appeared for fade for some time at this point.
Mom had not had any internals so we had no idea how far she was, her behavior showed that she was either close to birth, or baby was in an odd position. If the position wasn't great it would be good to know so we can try some movements to help. So mom agreed to a check.
Mom was fully dilated!
She told us she was not ready to push so we told her there was no rush. We would wait for her. But with the next contraction I could feel moms muscles push as I did sacral pressure. So I quickly called Melissa back and we got all the things closer.

Mom insisted she wasn't pushing, but her body said differently and pretty soon after we could see the bulging sac of membranes appear. I was expecting it to pop all over us, but it didn't.
Baby's head was born sac still completely intact. Once the head was born we wait for baby to rotate. Normally this happens fairly quickly but for this mom it took quite a while so Melissa decided to break the sac, it was full of vernix so we couldn't see baby's face) and we needed to see baby's skin tone to make sure he was getting oxygen while we wait(oxygen via the cord, but at this stage the cord can become somewhat compressed depending on where it is and babys skin tone can tell us so much). Slowly and gently the rest of baby was born at exactly 15.19pm. He showed us very clearly that he has fantastic lungs.
Mom eagerly reached for her baby and was so relieved he was finally born.

This was such a wonderful birth. This time I took a photo of Jamie New Shoot Photography as she was doing her work. We always see the beautiful photos she takes, but never the person behind the camera! Jamie is calm and so quiet. You can't even hear her camera at all. She gets the best shots without being in the way! If you want awesome birth photos, Jamie is definitely your girl!

22/06/2026

The Kinmonts ✨

20/06/2026

03/06/2026

The best doula and the best storyteller Doula Naomi! 😆🤍

12/05/2026

The Arthur family ✨

05/05/2026

Summer’s newborn session 🤍✨

05/05/2026

01/05/2026

Imke’s birth story ✨

Im still fairly new to capturing births in theatre, but what I’ve learnt so far is that no c-section is the same. There’s something so special and significant every time I document one. This time it was absolutely captivating to see how much little Imke was moving around inside mamas belly while waiting, prepping and getting ready for her delivery. Almost like she was telling us how excited she was about her birthday!