There is no moment in anyone’s life more raw or real than when a new baby arrives into the world.
I have had two such moments and can hand on heart say they were the most powerful and amazing of my life. The sheer anticipation. The pain. The excitement. The relief. The overwhelming love and joy when that baby is in your arms, it is an experience so life-altering no words can truly do it justice.
These images, though, will give you an idea, I think. Captured by Sydney-based birth photographer Jerusha Sutton, these stunning pictures show just how beautiful birth really is.
Sutton, who has been a doula for ten years almost stumbled upon her new career when she started bringing her camera along to offer her clients breathtaking keepsakes of their big event.
“I was always just blown away by how beautiful birth was and how we didn’t see it,” Jerusha recently explained to Australian website Babyology.
“All the images we get are through the media and movies and it’s all quite frightening and alarming and seemingly dangerous, and when I started attending births I started to see how exquisite and beautiful it really is.”
The photographer says she wants women to be able to look back on their birth and for society to see it in a more positive light.
“You will photograph every coming birthday your child has – why not have beautiful photographic memories of the very first one, your child’s actual birth day?”
We couldn’t agree more. Here are some of Jerusha’s favourite images she has ever captured, and we couldn’t help tearing up a little at the sheer mama magic in each and every one of these:
“I picked this image because I just think it represents the moment in labour where the woman knows it’s just about her and she has got to get through it herself. The beauty in this image is that necklace she is wearing is made from beads that were given to her at her blessingway, which is a ceremony held for a pregnant woman where women come and one ritual is the ‘blessing of the beads’ that are made into a necklace for her to wear in labour.”
“This is a body half in and half out during a cesarean. That in between world where everyone in the room holds their collective breath and the baby is pulled out into the world.”
“This baby has just been laid onto the mother’s chest. Women often just take a few moments to come back into their bodies before they open their eyes and take in their babies. It’s such a beautiful moment.”
“This is such an integral part of birth photography in terms of capturing all the little details – the measurements, soft downy skin of the baby, the newborn head and all of the things that change so quickly.”
“I just love seeing couples birthing their babies together. Nothing else matters in that moment, there is only one thing to do today and it’s to bring this baby into the world and they gather such strength from each other. It is just exquisite to witness.”
“This is just that moment where everything else has died away and all the medical stuff is taken care of and finally the woman can just sit and discover and fall in love with this little person she has just birthed.”
This is what I love, not just capturing the strength and the emotion of the woman but of a partner, who is just so in awe of the process and that this can really just happen in front of their eyes.”
