On the 26th of January this year, my wife Laura and I received our firstborn, Beth Choo Ning Xuan. I believe that with the grace of God and lots of prayer (we appreciate many of you who stood by us and interceded for us), we have gotten through the last week since we got home from the hospital. There have been many ups and downs as we have made adjustments to our daily routine as well as started to learn to care for Beth. So far, the ups have far outweighed the downs and we are definitely enjoying parenthood despite the tiredness, and sometimes sheer exhaustion of each day, as we continue to tweak our daily schedule.
I am really proud of Laura. She normally has a really low threshold for pain and yet she went through 6 hours of labour without any painkillers (i.e. no epidural, no laughing gas, no pethidine, etc). She was still walking around till about 2 hours before the birth when the Gynea caught her walking around outside the delivery ward and ordered her back inside. :P She was determined to do everything naturally and she succeeded with flying colors! She actually looked pretty fresh after labour (see the 3rd photo in the slideshow below which was taken about 3 mins after Beth popped out). We are trying to start our journey as parents well and Laura is doing a great job in her new role of mother and I try to support her in whatever way I can.
Beth has been really helpful by allowing us to sleep more during the past 3 nights. I helped do her 3.30am feeding last night so Laura could have an uninterrupted sleep till 7+am. Beth is a real cutie and likes to save energy often by just peeping through one eye (she gets this from Laura and Laura is quite sure that Beth’s acute sense of curiosity comes from me). As a photographer, she makes such an interesting subject for me. I am just trying to figure out how to get into the photos as well! One of the things that parents appreciate when I do my family/baby photography service is that both parents get to be in the photos. Normally, only 1 parent (usually the mother) appears in the photos with the child/children because the other parent (usually the father) is always behind the camera.
Here are a selection of photos from our first week as new parents:
PS. If any of you or your friends want to have a Family/Baby Photography session done, please feel free to recommend my services or speak with me via the Contact Link.