I get to meet my daughter tomorrow and I won't lie, I'm absolutely fucking terrified.

I'm not scared of becoming a mother, or of the pain that comes along with it. I'm not scared of the change it's going to have on my life or my body.

I have a crippling medical phobia, it's not just needles, it's everything from the curtains to the uniforms to the lighting that bothers me, the smells, the sounds, the whole environment. I really wanted to have her at home but I've been strongly advised against it by my consultants and so I'm booked in for a C-section first thing tomorrow morning. 

I have quite a few underlying health conditions and pregnancy has been far from easy for me, I've been under the care of multiple consultants and a wonderful midwife from the one to one team that has been so supportive of both my physical issues and my problems with medical environments. Because of these combined issues I'll be out under a general anesthetic when she's actually born and I'm ok with that.  A lot of people have expressed opinions on this (rarely positive) but I'm a big believer in knowing yourself and sticking to whats best for you. I've found throughout pregnancy other people seem to find it hard to keep their opinions (and their hands) to themselves. If you're one of those types, just stop it yeah?

I've really not enjoyed being pregnant, the list of ailments and complications that I've had is pretty long and almost each week brought some new unpleasant side effect, diagnosis or medication. Yesterday on of my teeth fell out.  I've spent a lot of time at the hospital, had a lot of tests, scans and treatments and I'm really glad that it's over now.  I feel very ready for the next part to start.

Aside from the physical effects of this past year and growing a human, it's been a little tricky with work. I had to let go of a fair few jobs from pretty early on because I just wasn't well enough and that's been hard, being self employed and trying to take care of myself and her as she's been growing.  I do feel to an extent that I've let some people down this year but you constantly get told that you need to rest and take care of yourself, which seems so easy if you're employed in a regular job with a regular payslip and regular benefits. I'm not sure how single people do this.

If you follow me on Instagram (@shelley_richmond_) you'll know that I've also had a huge renovation project going on this year after a complicated purchase and massive flood just as we were exchanging contracts. It's been really really hard going, we've worked every single day on restoring this property to it's former glory. We still have rooms that are untouched (as illustrated above) but we also now have heat, light and power, a shower, some semblance of a kitchen and more importantly a roof, whereas we've spent most of the year without these things. We've worked so hard and so fast for her. For this little person that we don't even know yet.

One day I'll tell her all about it and show her all the pictures, I'l tell her about how we wore wooly hats inside because it was freezing cold and cooked on a camping stove for months. I'll tell her about how we had to fill the bath up with a hosepipe that came up through the floorboards. I'll tell her about how her dad fell through the ceiling in her room that I'd just spent two weeks fixing and how every single piece of wooden panelling had to be removed and painstaikingly treated for mould and woodworm. I'll tell her about the pipes that randomly exploded in the middle of the night and turned the dining room into a waterfall and I'll tell her that we did it all for her so that she could grow up somewhere beautiful that feels like home.

I'll be taking a short break from shooting anything work wise but I'll be booking things back into my diary from mid March so do get in touch if you'd like to work with me on any projects in 2019, I may just be a little slower at replying to emails for a while...

Shelley

x