c58-8 A father has been captured delivering his own twins during a water birth in a gorgeous new series of images. Robin Baker, a Temecula, California-based birth photographer and doula, snapped the images of the unnamed couple in a poignant photo shoot on February 24th that captured every step of the water birth process – which happened so quickly that their birth team couldn’t get there in time.
The photographer calls the moment ‘truly one of the most incredible moments of my career’ and one of the shots was even a winner of the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers’ 2016 Image of the Year Competition.
‘These parents are experienced home birthers as they had their first child at home just two years prior to the twins,’ Robin tells Daily Mail Online about the couple. She adds: ‘In between contractions and taking photographs I was focused on helping them prepare a space to birth. I am also an experienced home birther so I knew what needed to be done.’ While snapping photos and helping the mother deal with contractions, doula Robin was helping to prepare the space as the birth sped along so rapidly that the birth team didn’t even have time to come for the process.
However, the group were able to speak to the doctor on the phone and in the end: ‘The parents were calm and peaceful and brought their babies into the world effortlessly’. Robin filled the tub at the perfect temperature, and the mother climbed in and immediately began to push.
‘They had 30 minutes of bonding time with Baby A before Baby B made his way into his fathers hands still en-caul (covered in the amniotic sac),’ she says. The photo Robin took at this moment is the award-winning shot, showing the father cradling the emerging child in the red-tinted water while his wife holds their first child, a baby girl, in her arms.
‘The mom reached down and removed the sac and dad turned the baby to release the Nuchal cord and then handed him to mom.’ According to the mother, this was a planned home birth that ‘went perfectly just the way I had hoped’.
Shortly after, the birth team finally arrived to deliver the second placenta. The resulting images, both in color and black and white show the mother with her hair tied up in a bun looking alternatively pained and delighted as she and her tattooed partner welcome their new baby boys.
