I wrote recently about the anxiety attack Tara had when we had our photo shoot with the wonderful Adam from Cavanagh Photography.  This photo session was organised by a lovely friend of mine from online.  I felt so blessed that Natalie, Adam and Kim wanted to offer such a sweet gift to my family, to honour our up and coming child, this time before… the time after Avery… these moments.

Adam was so warm and friendly when we met.  I had spent my time messaging with his wife, Kim, previously, but when I drove into the park, there was Adam waving us along.  It was a HOT day. Humid and crazy.  Tara and I had just been in the car for the last two hours and were a little frazzled.  I needed to get changed. I needed to do my make up.  I needed to get Tara organised.  I needed to fix my hair.  The fact that this took some time never once flustered Adam (even if it flustered me!).  He just organised his gear and waited for me to get ready.

At one point I sat down on a kerb to do my make up, slipped and fell backwards into the garden bed.  And was promptly stuck.  Like a turtle on her back. I tried to get up, but I was lodged.  And like all good photographers, Adam laughed first, and helped me second.  I would have done the same! And all the ice was broken.

Once we were ready we headed off across a bridge to an island for some photo taking.  Tara was excited, I was hot, and Adam was enamoured by Tara’s antics. We were in for some fun.

We had brought some props, the main ones being Bailey bear, and Avery in his suitcase.

For the next hour and a bit we played in long grass, avoided stinging nettles, and laughed far too much.  Tara’s anxiety was fairly easy to managed through this part, though, you can see in some of the photos the pupils dilating and the eyes getting bigger and bigger.  Her face becomes more harsh in comparison to the first photo and you can see how much her body is in hyper vigilant mode.

Adam made it so easy to play for the camera, and we just had fun.  Tara made Adam laugh the more she played up, which made it easy to smile throughout the photos.

Eventually we changed locations and headed to the beach.  5 metres of fabric, me in my underwear and a gusty coastline provided some great photos.  Tara was busy collecting 2 million tiny shells to really pay attention to what was going on – that was until the powder paint was brought out.

Oh my!  So much fun.  We covered each other in the fine powder over and over and over again.  By the end of it we looked like green zombies as the sea spray fastened the paint to our skin.  It really was a fun way to finish off our afternoon.

We slowly climbed the stairs back to the cars, Tara running ahead, and Adam and I talking about photographers, Heartfelt, Avery and anxiety with Tara.  I waddled, Adam walked and Tara ran all the way back.

We said our goodbyes, I offered a Adam a painted powdery hug, but he wisely declined!  And we were off…

So…  for your viewing pleasure, let me present the first of a collection of photos from our wonderful shoot.