I’m so proud of my wife, Cassandra, who by following the Hypnobirthing method managed to go through the entire labour without pain relief.
She woke up this morning (7:30am ish) with surges (contractions) approximately 4 minutes apart, the birthing pool was filled at 14:30 (2:30) and 3 hours and 12 minutes later in our front room we met our son for the first time.

Here are some photographs from the day!

Inflating the pool

Filling the pool

Checking the temperature

Need to time contractions? There’s an app for that….

Breathing through the contraction

Holding on tight (at least it wasn’t my hand)

The star of the show Haydn Taylor Glavin

After a bit of protesting from my dear wife I was allowed to bring a camera with me although this has got her a little worried with what is going to happen at the birth!

The whole event was pretty amazing, being able to see what our little Doodle (long story and I think it’ll be stuck with it for life!)  looked like and seeing what it was doing was just unreal, it’s something I’d really recommend. Obviously you are at the mercy of your little one as some decide not to play ball when they are being scanned, we were one of the lucky ones on the day!

Here are a few shots from the day and some of the 4D scan pics.

My Sister in Law is a bit of a party organiser, she manages to put some really nice touches to anything she looks after so I knew that whatever she had planned for Halloween this year would be a bit special, fortunately I wasn’t disappointed!

Here are some photos of her front garden. All taken at 6400 iso with a 24-70 at f2.8

I’m editing the video and will upload that shortly.

We were staying in the Falcon Hotel in Bude, on the Sunday we took a walk around the town and down to the beach. Unfortunately the gorgeous weather didn’t take long to break, you can always count on the British Summer!

After a walk in the pouring rain back to the car we headed towards home via whatever was on the route. We paid a visit to Dartington Crystal to do a factory tour, which typically didn’t run on weekends! We did however get to see a lead crystal hand cast being made.

Here are some photos that I took during our little wander.

The slideshow is being updated daily so that you can all have a laugh at my expense, so if you can spare a minute or two then have a look through these, click on any of the images and then use the cursor keys to scroll through them.

Again, those that have donated, thanks, and for those that haven’t then please click here and donate whatever you can spare.

For all of the other Mo Bros out there, don’t forget the salute!

]]> http://www.paulglavin.co.uk/blog/movember-almost-halfway/feed/ 1 http://www.paulglavin.co.uk/blog/movember-begins/ http://www.paulglavin.co.uk/blog/movember-begins/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:36:58 +0000 Paul http://www.paulglavin.co.uk/blog/?p=110 In between processing weddings, convincing my wife this is a good idea and trying not to think about how stupid I’m going to look, I hadn’t actually realised how difficult it is to break routine.

In the 16 or so years that I’ve been shaving I built up a method that works for me and it’s only this morning when it came to shaving off the non Mo bits that I nearly shaved the whole lot off!

Cassandra is not happy about the whole Mo thing but thankfully she is putting up with it for the month.

Donations have been arriving, my total as of this morning is £185, not a bad start and I know that times are tight for a lot of people so every little bit is really appreciated. The link again (sorry!) is HERE!

Lee has started up the Daily Mo which will have more pictures of all things related to the Mo and track our progress throughout the month.

Thanks again all!

Reading the blurb in his invitation email spurred me on: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, 35,000 men are diagnosed every year, one man dies every hour and scarily 1 in 11 UK men will be diagnosed in their lifetime, you realise that there is a large chance that someone you know could be affected by this cancer and it’s not just up to other people to raise money.

The brief premise behind the event is as follows: I must start the month of November clean shaven, from then on I must grow a moustache, I am not allowed to grow a beard or a goatee, however a small growth under my bottom lip is allowed and this is apparently called a “tickler”

Now being a photographer this also gives me a little project, so every day I will be updating a self portrait slideshow with my progress so that you can all have a good laugh at my expense!

The slide show page is here

Whilst I don’t mind the laughter, I’d also appreciate your donations so if you fancy donating then please click here

If you’re dubious about clicking on links then visit http://uk.movember.com/donate/donate-search.php and enter my id number 1628211

If you’d like to see more details of where the money will go then click here

Family is important to me and one thing I’m aware of, especially being a photographer, is that you can never have enough photographs of your family. I’m pretty sure by now that my family are fed up of the site of me behind a camera though!

Before going out for a beer I managed to rope them into a quick group session and almost got my Dad to behave (almost!)

Cassandra, Mum and Dad

 My Loving wife!

I don’t know where I get it from.

After that It was off to the pub!

The Pub

I can think of worse views whilst enjoying a beer!

One of the things that I know how it started is my love of photography and like most of my bad tastes in music and the like, it’s all my Dad’s fault!

I remember being given his precious olympus OM10 to have a play with, going together to Knole Park to photograph deer, being allowed my “own” camera when we went on holiday and returning with 2 rolls of film of caves and rocks. Being given my first camera so I could take pictures on school trips (and later losing it on the train)

It all lead to where I am now and thanks to the opportunity offered by a close friend when they asked me to photograph their wedding I can honestly say I’ve found my true passion.

The enjoyment I feel when I’m sharing someones special day, capturing special moments and giving the couple something precious to rememember them with is such a fantastic experience and something I want to keep repeating.

I’ll be putting some of my previous weddings shortly so keep a lookout for them.

Paul