MARGARET CHARLES | 3 WEEKS

Family of SIX.

And no one could do it better than this family who welcome their fourth daughter in July. Just look at those four precious little Southern Belles!

Lifestyle Newborn Session | Kacey Gilpin

KESSLER | 2 WEEKS OLD

My friends did it again! Another beautiful baby. Kessler was sweet, calm, and a joy to photograph! His sister, Ellis, was entertaining as always. How I love watching families interact as a brand new unit when another member is added!

Parenting and lack of sleep is hard, but Sam and Jordan handle it with grace. (And she decorates like a pro, too).  Hear all about Kessler's birth from his mama below!

"With my first baby, we had a scheduled induction and a blissful epidural. This time around the plan was the same. But God had a different plan. A few days before my due date I started having contractions in the morning. They went away by midday so I thought they were just Braxton Hicks. Around 4:30 pm, while wrangling my toddler and trying to make dinner, they came back. They weren't very painful, but I told my husband to be on the alert. I called the doctor a couple hours later to ask whether I should come into the hospital. My doctor was on vacation and the on-call doctor decided that I was probably in false labor. "Come into the hospital if they are so bad you cannot walk or talk, or if your water breaks" she told me." 

Lifestyle Newborn Session, Kacey Gilpin Photography

"We fed our daughter dinner and put her to sleep. I texted some friends to complain about how annoying it was that I was in pain but not in labor and one of them told me that she was walking and talking 30 minutes before she had her daughter. She delivered that baby in her bath tub because there wasn't time to leave the house. Worried about delivering at home, I got up to use the bathroom and my water broke. My husband called my mom to come stay with our daughter and suddenly my contractions were so strong I couldn't move. I couldn't believe how quickly the pain came. I told my husband that I didn't think I could wait for my mom to arrive and that we needed to go to the hospital right away."

Lifestyle Newborn Session, Kacey Gilpin Photography

"After calling half a dozen people to ask them to sit at our house, a friend was finally able to come over and we sped down the street to the hospital. We live on the same street as our hospital and I used to joke that the baby could be coming out of me but I would still make it to the hospital on time. That is true, but just barely. We made it into the OBGYN emergency room just as I told the nurse I needed to push. She said I was dilated 9 cm and they wheeled me down the hall to a delivery room, paging the hospital doctor as they ran. I asked over and over for an epidural to no avail. They never even got an IV ready for me."

Lifestyle Newborn Session, Kacey Gilpin Photography

"Everything around me grew fuzzy as all my focus was on the amount of pain every contraction brought and the fear that I might actually have to push a baby out without any medicine. When the doctor entered the room I had the biggest contraction yet and my husband said, "he has so much hair!" I asked the doctor how many pushes it would take to get him out and she said my baby could be here in three good pushes. I pushed twice and felt relief. They laid my son on my chest and he was hardly crying. I asked if something was wrong with him but they reassured me that he was just happy and content."

Lifestyle Newborn Session, Kacey Gilpin Photography

"To this day that is how I would describe him. He has been so calm and compliant during his life so far, the absolute opposite of our first newborn experience. His delivery was the opposite too, but it was another way that God has shown me that He knows what's best. My plan to have an easy, medicated, scheduled birth was tossed aside as he quickly entered the world. My entire life I had feared the pain of labor. But this experience left me feeling a strength I didn't know I had. And the baby we got at the end of it was more perfect for our family than I could have imagined. His gentle, sweet spirit has already brought us so much joy."