ares james | birth story – pittsburgh, pa birth photographer – sewickley valley hospital

On February 27, I started to feel tired around 10pm.  I decided I’d stay awake to work on ‘just a few more things’ and found myself in bed by midnight.  At 1:30 a.m. I awoke to a phone call from Bronwyn, letting me know that her water had broken.  Uh oh! I knew that Bronwyn had a feeling that her baby girl would come early, but was I ready to photograph my first birth?

Okay, all drama aside… I was so excited, and so nervous!  I ran around the house frantically throwing things together (that will teach me to be prepared, eh?) while my dog stared at me with a “what-are-we-doing-up-at-this-hour?” look.  After dropping Emmet off at my parents’ house, I  headed for the hospital, hoping to make it there on my almost-empty gas tank (preparedness: I just don’t have it).

Upon arriving in the hospital parking garage, one of the funniest conversations of my life unfolded. I saw a man with a long beard standing across the garage, and he was approaching me.  As a twenty-something girl alone in a parking garage at 2:15 a.m., I started to freak out a little bit 🙂  This is how our conversation went:

Me: “Can I help you?”

Strange man: “Yeah, my daughter is about to have a baby, and I can’t seem to get into the hospital. Do you know if these doors are usually locked?”

Me: (with a sense of recognition, though still on-edge from rushing and being approached by a possible axe-murderer) “Ohhhhhh. You must be Bronwyn’s mom. I’m Charlene.”

Strange (not anymore) man: “Well, no. I’m her dad. Are you the doctor?”

Me: (In my head: Way to go, champ. You just called a man with a beard a woman.)  No. I’m not a doctor. I’m the photographer. What did you say about the door being locked?

I have to say that, in addition to being an amazing experience, that conversation is one of my favorite things about that night 🙂

waiting… expecting to welcome a baby girl…here we go!it’s a boy! (love the look of surprise on Momma’s face! she LAUGHED so hard!)a perfect little boy, Ares James.Dad and big brother enter. I’m pretty sure Dad didn’t believe it was a boy at first! This is his “hmmm….” face 🙂this little guy missed his Momma!okay, so how many of you noticed that Bronwyn and Apollo (big brother) are TWINS in the image on the left?

Thank you to Bronwyn and Philip for allowing me to capture the story of your little guy’s arrival.  I’m so honored to have been a part of it!