The Birth of Ethan - Oahu Hawaii Birth Photographer

*The Sophia Co is the brand new and improved version of Three Plus Photography. This blog post has been imported from my previous blog and may contain my old watermark on the images.

We have a tendency of categorizing everything around us. We do the same with birth. We expect that a second or third baby will be born faster than a previous baby, because that's what most people say will happen.

The truth is, that's not always the case.

The Willis' were expecting their fourth baby when they found me and asked me to document their last birth. Being excited is really an understatement to what I felt. Fourth baby! I had never captured a fourth birth. And on top of that, these awesome people were my very first contact after I had moved back to Hawaii and I couldn't believe how fast she had found me via a google search!

With a history of delivering before 37 weeks, we all prepared ourselves for another early birth. But when her due date came and went, we were all surprised. This little baby was cozy inside his mommy, and wanted to stay in there for as long as possible.

Eventually, an induction was scheduled. Again, we all thought it would go down fast. Again, we were surprised at how differently mom's body reacted.

Fourth baby. All expectations gone. A totally different experience. It was amazing!

After a long long night of no real progression, I left to give them a few hours to try and sleep. I crashed at a friend's house that lives right by the hospital. Those 3-4 hours of sleep were a blessing!

When morning came, new hope came with it. And progress!

Baby Ethan joined us earthside mid-morning, in a rush of emotions.

I've been capturing births for almost 3 years now, and I had never seen a mom cry like Melanie did. Fourth baby! All the emotions were so tangible and contagious! And when baby Ethan was having a bit of trouble regulating his temperature, dad opened up his shirt and put him right on his chest for some skin-to-skin since mom was really tired from the long hours of labor. It's always awesome to see dads do skin-to-skin!

I absolutely loved every single second of being there. It's always such a great honor to me to be able to capture the first moments of new life.

Please watch Ethan's Birth Story film and still images below.