Meeting Our Second Baby Girl | A Hospital Film

when it came to preparing items to take with us to the hospital for the birth of our second baby, the first thing on our list was my DSLR.  yes, i stressed over the perfect going home outfit, made sure the carseat was in the car and packed a well thought out hospital bag…but my camera was the one thing i made sure was ready to go, with bells on.  when that moment finally arrived when my contractions sent us to the hospital, we knew we wanted to document every moment of our baby’s birth.  well, everything but the actual birth.  there are some things that are just meant for you and your partner and all devices were put away once it was time to push.  and even though there were half a dozen hospital nurses in the room with us, it seemed like it was just us two.  while my husband and i love the idea of documenting our lives, we also are intentional about living in the moment with one another and putting our phones down to live life fully.  all that being said, we knew we wanted to create a hospital film for our daughter, documenting her first hours and days.

want to learn how i photograph my babies, from the hospital to their first birthday party?  check out my ebook The First Twelve: A Guide To Photographing Your Baby’s First Year.

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once that saint of a man, also known as the anesthesiologist, gave me my much wanted epidural and i was finally comfortable upon being admitted to the hospital…it was all just about waiting.  if you missed it, i shared our birth story on the blog.  while waiting, my husband and i took turns creating video footage with my DSLR.  i intentionally brought my favorite lens to the hospital, because it is the best choice for creating film and for indoor photography.  i love how our birth video shows both of our perspectives, as he filmed around the room and i filmed my own perspective from the hospital bed.  and, just as we did with our first baby, we were intentional about getting in front of the camera together to speak some sweet words to our baby to be.  if there is one thing i recommend doing, it’s recording a video for your baby.  we have videos of us talking to both of our girls, hours before they were born, and those videos are cherished immensely.

now that i am getting more sleep with our littlest being 5 months old, i was finally able to sit down and edit our hospital footage to create a video.  there were tears shed while editing and watching this footage, as film is so powerful.  pictures are wonderful, yes.  but the movement and sound of film has a way of taking you right back to that moment.  back to that moment of how she felt in my arms after birth.  back to that moment of how small she really was.  back to that moment of what it felt to finally hear my husband tell me, “she’s a girl!”

if you need help taking your own newborn hospital photos like i took mine, check out my 5 hacks for taking your own hospital newborn photos.

Meeting Our Second Baby Girl | A Hospital Film

gear used to create this film : dslr | lens | adobe premiere pro | lightroom for editing

i definitely want to thank my amazing husband for not only helping me take some of this footage, but for encouraging me to do so.  as any new parent remembers, having a baby is exhausting for both parents.  and our hospital stay was tiring and busy.  but my husband was so great about either picking up my camera himself to create some film, or reminding me to do so while i was photographing still shots.  even though he knew we were tired, he also knew how much we wanted the final video and he kept our end goal of a beautiful birth video in mind.

i can’t even tell you how beautifully special this video is for us, our children, and our family.