Adrianne Rodrigues, Photography & Birth Services

05/22/2022

❤️❤️❤️

“I Won’t Hold Your Baby

…unless you ask me to, in which case, I will snuggle and cuddle your baby as much as you want me to.

I never ask my clients if I can hold their baby. In fact, I rarely ever touch my client’s baby if I can help it. Sounds sort of like the opposite of what you might picture of a doula, right? We must all be birth crazy, baby obsessed women who just want to cover babies in kisses and love and get an emotional high from attending births?

Not this doula.

I LOVE attending births. Call me crazy, but getting those middle of the night calls is one of my favorite parts of this job. I get to listen to someone at their most vulnerable times - the excitement, the hesitation, the nervousness of the unknown. Being able to provide some comfort, reassurance and continuity of care to the people I work with is so important to me (and them!)

Rushing off in the night, quietly getting myself ready, getting in the car and heading off to their home or hospital makes me feel like I’m on a secret birth mission that nobody around me knows about. When I arrive I fall as seamlessly as I can into the rhythm of the birth and start supporting my clients in whatever way they need most.

When the baby arrives I step aside and leave room for the new parents to discover their baby. I try and grab some photos (I’m not a birth photographer though, so keep your expectations in check!) and then I only step in if my client needs me for some reason.

Why does that matter? Why won’t I ask to hold your baby? Simply because: they are yours, not mine. I want you to be able to hold your baby as close as you want, for as long as you want without anyone interrupting that time. There will be enough people coming along in the next few hours and weeks who need to take that baby out of your arms for whatever reason, and tons of friends and family who will offer help by “holding the baby”.

Instead, I want to hold you, whether that’s in my arms, in my heart or my thoughts. By supporting and “holding” you, I don’t need to hold your baby. But if you ask me to, I would LOVE to.”

Written by

03/07/2022

✨I'm moving!✨
🏠➡️🏠
My family will be moving from Midlothian to Denton, Texas this coming June 2022. We've found a house we love in an amazing neighborhood and I'm so excited to get to know birthworkers on the north side of DFW. I will not be taking any new doula or birth photography clients for April, May, or June due dates. I have 1 spot available for a birth client with a July due date. I will continue to be available for birth classes, both online and in person.

01/06/2022

I’m grateful for such an awesome work community. We’ve got each other’s backs so our clients still get the best care even when we can’t be there.

On Christmas Day, Kathryn was unable to be at her clients’ birth because she was sick, and I filled in for her. I got to work with a midwife I’d always wanted to work with, and got to put into practice some of the advice I was given recently on getting more variety in my birth shots. Part of our booking fees as birth workers is to be able to pay backups if something comes up. It’s on us to find you a comparable backup, not you!

11/30/2021

"I have prepared for this."

You have spent the last several months preparing both physically and mentally for this experience. Birth can be intense, but it doesn't have to be scary. Remembering that what you're going through is normal and expected can help you feel safe.

Affirmations are a reminder of things that you believe about yourself, or want to believe about yourself. On the outside, it doesn't seem like it changes much, but affirmations work on your subconscious mind so that when you are deep in labor, those messages can reach the part of your brain that is working the hardest.

11/29/2021

During labor, you want your baby's head to engage the cervix. This creates a positive feedback loop. The pressure on the cervix signals your body to produce more oxytocin, which causes more contractions, which further engages the baby's head on the cervix. Here, my client is doing lunges to help this process by the recommendation of her midwives. Her baby started crowning just minutes after this was taken!

11/29/2021

"I can't wait to meet you, for I already love you."

09/24/2021

09/10/2021

I love this series of images, each only moments apart. Midwife was helping mom release some tension to help baby descend. Baby started crowning only minutes after this!

07/14/2021

🎶 I like big babies and I cannot lie!

There are different opinions on what a “big baby” weighs, with most of the weights being either more than 8 lbs 13 oz or more than 9 lbs 15 oz at birth. Most of the evidence we have comes from the U.S. Listening to Mothers Survey. This study showed that although 1 out of 10 babies is born large, there were 2 out of 3 mothers that had an ultrasound to determine baby’s size, and 1 out of 3 mothers were told their baby was too big. The suspected “big baby” was only 7 lbs 13 oz. That’s a big difference!

Some of the other mothers said that their care provider talked about inducing and even Cesarean because their baby was too big, and 2 moms were told they had no choice other than cesarean.

A total of nine studies from 1992 to 2015 have all concluded one thing:
It is the suspicion of big babies, not big babies themselves that leads to pregnancy interventions like induction rates, Cesarean rates, and higher stalled labor rates.

Ultrasounds are not always accurate. In fact, if they predict a big baby, it is accurate only 50% of the time for non-diabetic pregnant women. The thought alone that a baby may be big might actually be more harmful than the big baby itself.

06/18/2021

"I trust my body and my baby"

Affirmations are a powerful tool that can transform the way you react to life experiences. Birth is one of many situations where affirmations can have a huge effect on how you handle the intensity of the experience. Trust your body to work and your baby to find their way to your arms. The best way to achieve this belief is to work on it during your pregnancy. Each time you remind yourself of this, you break through your emotional walls a little bit more.

06/16/2021

Whether you breastfeed for an hour, a day, a month, a year, or more, any breastmilk your baby gets is beneficial. Your areolas are darker than the rest of your breast and your ni***es and colostrum smell like amniotic fluid to entice your baby to make their first latch. Relax into this moment. It's okay to slow it down while you learn how to work together. During the first hour of life, skin to skin is more important to your baby's wellbeing than breastfeeding, so it's okay to take a break and snuggle if things aren't quite clicking yet.

06/14/2021

I’m in the process of a birth photography certification course, and part of the requirements are to give names of people to write a recommendation for you. When I certified with BEST doula training, I wasn’t totally sure what direction I wanted to go in my business. But with the mentoring and support I’ve received, I have a better idea. These organizations push me to do better and learn as much as I possibly can.

Of course, there is nothing requiring us to certify to be birth photographers, doulas, or educators, but the things you learn, the support they give you, and most importantly to me: the standards to which you are held are so worth the investment of time and money.

One of the highlights of the CPBP™ process is reading the letters of recommendation our students receive