Eleanor’s Birth Announcements

In the leisurely days of pregnancy, when I could rub two brain cells together and actually had time to manage let alone master some sort of time management, I would dream up the birth announcements which we would send out to all our nearest and dearest on the arrival of our precious little boy or girl (of which I was certain would be a boy!)

Then of course, Eleanor arrived. Very much of the pink variety – a girl! I filed away my ‘one day maybe’ birth announcement for a little baby boy and got busy designing something suitable for our Blueberry who turned out to be a Pinkberry. In those early newborn days, when Eleanor would sleep for hours on end during the day (ha! imagine!) I fiddled around in Photoshop to design a pretty little something, and accompanied them with some little kraft card, washi tape and adhesive lace to write a thank-you note.

Eleanor’s newborn shoot was somewhat haphazard, with the greatest of best intentions I really started to understand what other photographers had told me about it being different shooting your own baby. All those times I’d advised other mums of babies I was shooting to stand back, they can sense you, they can smell your milk, let me settle the baby, well…I was far too wrapped up in whether Eleanor was going to wake, whether Eleanor was hungry, whether Eleanor was too cold, too uncomfortable, should she be asleep in her bassinet now? I got the newborn loveliness that I wanted, but still I can see the merit in getting another photographer to do a newborn shoot of your own baby, when I’ve always thought that to be a ridiculous notion!

Funny how everything changes, prerogative and priorities, once a busy little baby is involved. I didn’t want to be those people sending out the birth announcements and thank-you’s when the baby is four months old (‘Come on people, sooner the better!’)…but of course, here we are, those people. And that’s just fine. Just look at what I’ve been busy with…

Eleanor’s birth announcements are finally in the post, and I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we’ve done that – have a birth announcement sent out…of our DAUGHTER. Huh…