Feeling lucky!

This week on Facebook I was hugely lucky enough to be drawn as a winner to a competition for a newborn photo shoot.

Emily broadbank a local Hampshire photographer was running the competition in which mums to be we're asked to submit their due date to be in with a chance of winning this excellent and to me once in a life time opportunity.

I sadly never got the chance to have a newborn photo shoot with Oscar because of my broken knee cap. I found myself very isolated and quite self conscious becoming a mummy not able to carry my child in my arms, push him in his buggy or buckle him into his car seat. Still on crutches and with the help of my wheelchair I could get around but I simply wasn't prepared mentally or physically to become a mummy with a broken limb to deal with at the same time. Unfortunately I struggled to come to terms with my situation for a long time and shyed away from photographs, looking at my newborn son sadly brought the accident flooding back to me and the weeks of being unable to move, in pain, highly dosed up on medication, and then suddenly I had something screaming at me, so fragile and helpless and wanting me do everything for him when I couldn't even get myself showered and dressed without assistance.

Tackling the stairs was impossible and Oscar's brand new nursery which had been lovingly decorated and prepared weeks before was vacant with me and him grounded on the downstairs floor.

Whilst other mummies were happily chattering away about breast feeding, sleep patterns and percentiles I was mulling over range of motion exercises, endless physiotherapy just to move my leg one degree by another each day and attending endless hospital assessments, x rays and learning how to inject myself with clexane blood thinners appropriately. I started to feel very envious of other new mummies and desperate to talk to someone going through what I was but there was no one, my situation for me it seemed was unique. The medical professionals would just look at me and shake their heads, almost like they didn't know quite what to do with me.

It was hard. There were tears, lots of them. For months in fact.

And no I'm not writing this for people to feel sorry for me, or to 'go on' about my broken leg again. I'm writing this because it was my reality and my experience of becoming a mother. The term 'labour plan now suddenly seemed so laughable and very far from the real world.

So that's why we don't have many newborn photographs particularly not as a family because well I just didn't have the confidence.

Fortunately I have some amazing family & friends around me and I day by day got through things. No I didn't attend first time mummy groups, I didn't subscribe to baby classes and I wasn't out walking my baby boy in his pram with a big beam on my face because this wasn't a possibility for me but I did overcome things in time and now I look back and the photographs aren't there.

Looking back now I feel an amazingly strong bond with my son, I remember the days I wanted to give up and he kept me going, I see the little boy he has become and I am immensely proud.

I must note, I did eventually build up a network of  local mummy friends, I was enrolled on a baby massage course at the nearby sure start where I met the lovely Beckie & Claire who I still keep in touch with, I had contact via email with my antenatal nct group and when strong enough began joining them for meet ups and a friend of ours Gem introduced me to the Ruskateers a pretty cute trio of baby boys. Oscar also has a friend in Penny his little buddy- daughter of a work colleague and fiance due around a similar time  and Lisa & Elliot who visited us after my accident. We also have some lovely little friends in the neighbourhood in Leo & Alexa who Oscar adores and Aimee and Autumn who visited us for play dates and moral support. And I am grateful for all of them for keeping me going during my recovery.

But with all this in the back of my mind when I got an email notification saying I'd won a newborn photoshoot for bump I actually had a tear in my eye. This is the unknown for me and my little family!

A chance to capture our little latest addition in the comfort of our home and 5 digital images to keep forever.

I cannot thank Emily enough for giving us this chance.

And now I will have something very special to show Oscar when he is older. Photographs of the special moment he became a Brother <3

I will keep you posted on the blog of our chosen images and hope they will be as magical to my readers as they are to us.

Check out Emily's beautiful work here:

Emily Broadbank

Natasha & Oscar x