The following exerpt is taken from her blog about her time in the studio. To read the full blog post, click here.

“I’ve always been quite a sentimental person. My husband always laughs at the things I keep, plane tickets, disneyland maps and hotel keycards. But when you’re pregnant, what can you keep to remember your tummy? The clothes, god no I planned on burning those. The books, ‘what to expect when expecting’ has already been leant to my next pregnant friend. The belly cast, the last thing you want to do when heavily pregnant is to be covered in paper mache. All I can think about is the part when you pop the balloon with a pin! Eek.

I always toyed with the idea of doing a pregnancy photoshoot but everytime I looked into it I was always put off by how tacky the photos looked. I thought to myself, I’ll never regret doing a shoot, if the photos are bad I’ll just never look at them. But there was always a risk that if I didn’t do one I would always look back with regret and wish I had beautiful photos of that time in my life.

I really wanted to document the bump but do it in a way that still maintained my style. While I was pregnant I really tried to look like my usual self. I felt like I didn’t veer too far from my usual style and that made me feel at ease with all the changes that we’re going on. I couldn’t control how wide my hips were getting, but I could buy the same One Teaspoon shorts in three different sizes. So when I finally decided on doing a shoot, I only wanted to choose items from my wardrobe. Strictly no maternity, loose sheets or any other weird pregnancy stuff. I also thought if I attempted the photos at home they were never going to look decent so full make up, hair and studio lighting was required.

Considering I had waited until I was 38 weeks pregnant, it was quite daunting trying to find a studio. I happened to find the Photo Studio in Fitzroy. The whole team was so lovely and they actually specialise in women’s photo shoots, both professional models and total first-timers. They organised a photographer (James Broadhurst), make up artist, stylist and hairdresser for me in under 24 hours and totally got the vision I was going for. When I explained to the stylist what I wanted to do she suggested bringing in an oversized hat and lots of accessories. I followed her advice and can now see how important it was. While I love dressing up for events and everyday life, studio photography is on another level and it just proves how important it is to work with people you can trust.”