Give the gift of blood this Christmas!!!!

Give Blood this Christmas!!!!

My story:

This time one year ago I gave birth to my son Pádraig. It was the most exhilarating and scary experience of my life. After an induced labour of 8 hours my son was born. Within a few minutes of his birth it transpired that something was wrong, I was hemorrhaging badly. I received immediate care and was rushed to surgery. After 40 minutes of frantic and magnificent work by the surgical team they announced I had stopped bleeding. In the end I lost just under 3 litres of recorded blood loss due to a torn cervix and my blood vessels in my uterus not closing after birth. I received 4 blood transfusions, 2 platelet transfusions along with a mix of other stuff. I was kept over night for observation in the high dependency ward where fabulous night nurses looked after me. The next day I finally got to meet my son properly, it was the end of an unexpected nightmare and the start of a fantastic new adventure with my husband and son.

The surgical team in the Our Lady of Lourdes delivery ward were amazing and I can't thank them enough for the treatment I received on the day of my son's birth. I especially want to thank the Irish Blood Transfusion services for the stellar work they do on a daily basis. I would like to encourage EVERYONE who can to give blood this Christmas season, it is amazing how simple a gift it is. You can save lives with this gift. I know as I'm convinced my life was saved that day by the treatment I got and the transfusions I received. I cant explain how grateful I am to the people out there who gave the blood and platelets which saved my life. I remember thinking while I was in surgery that I was going to give blood from now on, not knowing that once you have received blood you can no longer give blood.

Thank you for reading this and I hope it encourages some of you to give blood this Christmas.   

Happy Christmas! 

My new muse

I have been very busy taking photos of my little fella. Turns out he is very photogenic and stays nice and calm while I am taking my photos. Here are a selection of my favourites so far. I plan on getting the picture of his hand onto canvas. My husband wants me to photoshop out the dirt under Pádraig's nails, but I personally like that they are not perfectly clean. Baby's hands and feet are just good enough to eat at the best of times and I was determined to try to capture them like this. 

In the shot below I was playing with the position of the sun. I love the flair which appears in this photo, I only wish I had captured his eyes in focus, then this shot would be perfect.

I took a series of photos of Pádraig playing with his teddy on the couch while in the nip one day. I had a towel under him in case he decided to do his business while there. He was very good the whole way through until I decided I wanted to take a few shots without the towel, leaving the dark leather as my background. I snapped one shot before he decided to pee all over the couch, luckily it is leather and easy to clean. Here is the one shot I got: 

This one I find really cute as his facial expression is striking. Again, my focus is a little out.

Welcome to the world Pádraig O'Flaherty

Right it is time for me to get back on the horse, it has been far too long since I entered a post here or did any decent photography in general. Since February 2011 I have gotten engaged, married and become a Mum, so lets just say I have been kept busy! Now that my little boy Pádraig has been born, I am eager to get back to it. I am looking into investing in some good lighting as the winter weather is not helping me when it comes to getting some natural light to give me the quality of photos I am after. So before I get that far, here are some photos I have taken of my little son, one of which I have edited a little with 3 others untouched. Hopefully I can improve on these as I continue back into it (I feel I need to really reacquaint myself with my poor underutilised camera).