Earlier this week, Dara Crouch had gone into labor to give birth to her second child. Everything was going smoothly and both Crouch and her baby were safe. But when the doctor handed the mother her baby, Crouch was photographed with a very shocked expression. The baby was healthy and strong, but what shocked her was the fact that that she just gave birth to a baby boy.
Crouch’s first child was a daughter and she expected her second child to be another daughter. She knew this because her side of the family has been giving birth to baby girls for the past three generations. Their entire family line only gave birth to daughters in the past fifty years. The 29-year old crouch named her son Liam and later said that her reaction was shock more than anything else. But then it turned into worry, as she realized she did not have any idea how to bring up a son as they hadn’t had a baby boy in the family for generations. The photos of Crouch’s reactions to her son were taken by Neely Ker-Fox, a photographer and family friend.
“In my six years of being a birth photographer and over 100 plus births, I’ve never quite caught a reaction like hers,” said Neely Ker-Fox. “People sometimes don’t ‘get’ birth photography. But one day, her son will see this photo, and the others that I took that day, and see the love and excitement that welcomed him into this world. It doesn’t get much better than that.”