birth FAQ - All the answers to those scary questions

There are so many different reasons - heres just a few!

FOR THE FOREVER – cots, prams, baby clothes these last for only a short time - Photos are forever

FOR THE MOMENTS – There are some really amazing moments that couples share with each other and with their baby during birth. Joy, relief, pride, love!!These are the precious moments we capture

FOR THE MEMORY – The first thing to go when your body is managing pain or influenced by drugs is your memory!

FOR YOURSELF – Childbirth is hard work but you made it to the end and you achieved it!! So many women feel proud and empowered by seeing themselves get through their labour and delivery. We want to help you celebrate your strength and how amazing your body is.

FOR YOUR PARTNER – Birth photography allows your partner to be in moment together with you and by your side supporting you, without missing out on precious memories.

FOR YOUR CHILD – Kids love to see photos of themselves when they were first born. Capturing this precious moments preserves those images forever.

FOR THE QUALITY – No one wants ugly photos of themselves or blurry, dark, grainy iPhone photos of their baby! We have the best equipment and expertise for the job and know how to create flattering, respectful images of you that are sharp, in focus and well exposed.

PROFESSIONALISM
Ruvay strives to create a positive client experience in a professional manner. Her strict code of conduct, ethics, policies and values is designed to support you as the client and the medical staff she works with.

LOCATION
Based in Ipswich, Ruvay can service 15 different maternity hospitals and I'm only 40 minutes from Brisbane City and about an hour to the Gold Coast. Time is precious and limited so she does her best to get to you ASAP

EQUIPMENT
Ruvay gear is the best you can get for this job – Canon 5dmkii and mkiii along with a series of different lens. She also has back up equipment she can handle any situation!

Ruvay loves to tell a story -  starting with you arriving at the hospital, all the emotion of the progressing labor and finally the birth of your precious baby.

Partners (men in particular) often don’t understand why you want a birth photographer. Start by making a list of why it is important to you then talk to them about it. Here are some example reasons for wanting it, and the benefits for them too:

It means that they don’t have to think about it….let alone charge the camera, clear a memory card and remember to pack it in the bag.

It means they won’t get unflattering photos of you that you will hate looking back at for…..like…..ever.

You want them rubbing your back or holding your hand – not holding a camera.

You want them to be in the photos too. If they are taking photos, they can’t appear in the images.

Emotionally you want to look back on the moment and remember it for yourself too – this is hard to do when you are the one giving birth because you are too focused on managing pain, contractions and delivery to truly enjoy the day.

Its important to you as a woman and as a Mum – after all you’ve survived 9 months of pregnancy to get here.

You want to leave it up to someone who knows what they are doing and can produce professional photos instead of phone photos.

You only get to give birth how many times in your life? It doesn’t happen every day. Let’s celebrate it.

Yes, birth is a very private moment and very special for you as a couple – we are totally respectful and conscious of that. As a result, we work hard to ensure a discreet presence in the birth space by taking a “fly on the wall (with a camera)” approach so that you barely notice that we are there. We discuss your preferences for interacting with you during the birth and in most cases its limited to moments when you address your photographer first.

Neither do we. That just makes for an awkward day. It is important to us that you feel like you have a support person or a friend with you during your birth. We work hard on getting to know you and part of the purpose for your pre-birth consult is so that we can feel comfortable with each other. We meet with you as little or as often as you’d like during your pregnancy until you reach a point where you feel comfortable with Ruvay being involved.

We realise that some people feel confronted by the actual birth itself. And that’s perfectly OK. There are ways in which we can avoid those altogether. There are many different shots and angles that we can take during a birth so if you would prefer the family moments without the birth, then we can make that happen.

 Our portrait sessions start at $285 and our birth packages start at $995. 

Payments are made in a series of instalments to help break up the cost. A $250 booking retainer is taken at the time of booking to secure your date and place in our schedule. The balance of the birth session fee is then due at 36 weeks. We also offer payment plans and work with you to put together a payment schedule that works for you and your budget.

We try to get through our shoots as quickly as possible. During quieter times this can be as soon as 4 weeks after the birth. For busier periods, allow up to 8 weeks. Our services are in such high demand and birth shoots produce many many photos so working through them to create the professional polished look that you see takes time.

Birth sessions can produce anything between 150 and 500 photos. The amount depends highly on how the day progresses, how long we are with you and how long we stay post-birth. We will always guarantee to create a minimum of 150 photos from the day.

If you purchase a package with digital images, we provide both. Any books we put together for you can have all colour, all black and white or a combination of the 2.

Our business is built on imagery. It is how you find us and how other people will find us in the future. As a result, we need to share images from our shoots in a public forum in order to continue to market our services and grow our business. If we can’t use photos, we can’t market ourselves. When doing so however, we are always mindful of the private and sensitive nature of birth and the content shared is intended to be respectful of our clients whilst still sharing photos. We are very cautious over the content that we share and the nature of our business is built around the beautiful moments rather than anything graphic or highly private. This is an area that we discuss in depth at your pre-birth consultation.

No, the inherent nature of birth is photojournalistic or documentary in style. We capture things as they happen and find angles and compositions to suit based on what we’ve got to work with. We may direct you to sit together at the end to capture your first family portrait but that is the extent of our involvement.

Not a great deal no. We only really do so if you want us to or you instigate it.

ABSOLUTLEY!, we organise a pre-birth consultation at approximately 36 weeks. In this consult, we go through your plans for your birth, discuss any issues that may impact on our involvement, talk about when to contact us, discuss your preferences for the day and find out what type of photos are most important to you. This meeting goes for approximately 90 minutes and is usually our last meeting before you deliver. If you have a maternity shoot booked also, we do both one after the other to avoid a second meeting.

Yes, all photographers are up to date with their whooping cough vaccinations and each receive the flu shot every year to assist with protecting the families and baby’s we work with.

Communication is the key to being there at the right time. You will usually contact us at the first sign of labour or if you have made the decision to be induced or have a c-section. Contacting us as early as possible increases your success of being there in time (particularly if things move fast). As a general rule, we aim to be with you when you head to the hospital or when contractions are approximately 3-5 minutes apart. However, things can go super slow or change really quickly so we gauge each situation on a case by case basis. Such is the nature of birth.

Once we are with you at the birth, we stay with you until you deliver and for up to 2 hours post-birth. This could be 4 hours, 14 hours or 24 hours. So long as you delivery is progressing and your baby’s arrival is pending, Ruvay will stay.

Then so be it! Babies aren't born within normal office hours. As soon as you feel it's time to head to the hospital give Ruvay a call and she will ]meet you there.

The answer is yes and no. For the most-part no, we don’t need to. Our professional equipment and expertise means that we have other options with which to manage low light during the labour. However, we typically prefer to turn on flash during the pushing and delivery stages because things can move very quickly at this point and without enough light, we risk missing photos. Flash is used subtly – not only is it on the lowest brightness setting but it is aimed away from you at either the roof or the walls behind us. You do have the option to opt out of having flash used however, this can mean that photos are missed or that they are dark, blurry and grainy.

That’s fine. We are more than happy to step out of the room at any point during the labour and post-birth if you wish. We will often take short breaks during long labours anyway to allow time to eat and use the bathroom.

Unfortunately emergency situations happen. In these cases, we may or may not continue to photograph. A lot of it depends on what is happening in the room and the nature of the emergency. If you or your baby needs help, we refuse to get in the way of the medical staff’s ability to do what is needed. Your lives and health are always more important than photos – as is the need for the medical staff to do their jobs. If we stop shooting, we will begin again once the emergency situation has settled and there may be a gap in the photos. These situations are always case by case and we follow my professional judgement on how to approach them.

As with emergencies, we do our best to be perceptive of how people are feeling in these situations. We may or may not decide to continue photographing. These situations can be difficult as there are often many professionals in the room and there is a lot going on. If your medical team need to access the baby (thereby meaning that we can’t) then we will respectfully step back to allow them to do so. We use our best professional judgement in this situation.

Birth can happen very quickly so communication is key to not missing the birth. However it can and does happen – thankfully not very often. If we miss the birth, we still come in afterwards. There is always lots to capture after your baby arrives so we usually still attend and will often stay a bit longer than normal to keep photographing. Depending on how long this ends up being, we may offer you a  newborn or lifestyle family shoot after the day. We are keen for you to feel like you are getting value for money from your investment.

If you end up needing a caesarean-section, we work with you to seek approval from your OB and hospital before the day. If you end up requiring an emergency caesarean section on the day, we will work with you to get access to theatre. However, it is never a guarantee and sometimes we are refused access. In the end, you as the patient have the power and need to fight for us to be in theatre with you. If we cannot make that happen, we send you in with one of our cameras and between you and the theatre staff, we get what we can photos wise.

You do not need “approval” per se because as the patient you have a right to have photos from the day. However, it is a professional courtesy to let the hospital and any private medical staff know that you will be having a photographer and including this in your birth plan is a great start.

I service 16 different maternity hospitals from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Cleveland as well as home-births in suburbs in between. These include: Mater Mothers South Brisbane, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Birth Center, Wesley, Greenslopes, Northwest Private, Sunnybank, Caboolture, Redcliffe, Gold Coast University Hospital, Sunshine Coast University Hospital, Ipswich Hospital, St Andrew’s Private Hospital, Redlands Hospital, Logan and Beaudesert. 

Premature labour and delivery happens. If it does…..just ring me. So long as I’m still available, I will come. If you aren’t comfortable with having photos taken during this time, we will instead offer you a session in the neonatal intensive care or special units, or newborn shoot. These photos are just as important as the birth images and can be quite important for you to process the event afterwards.