Post-birth mum has most surprised face in the history of surprised faces
This is the face of Kim Guiley, a Santa Cruz mum who has just learnt the gender of her freshly birthed baby. Needless to say it was not what she expected!
Surprise us!
Kim and husband Travis were already parents to 3-year-old Hazel, and they were fairly convinced that their new arrival would also be a girl. That said, they decided not to find out for sure ahead of the birth, preferring to keep it a surprise until their new bub entered the world.
Kim is a doula and negotiated a very tricky second birth. She’d been labouring at home, planning on giving birth there, when things threatened to go a tiny bit pear shaped. Kim’s midwife suggested they head into hospital, but things progressed more quickly than expected. The baby’s arrival was imminent, Kim began pushing and subsequently her tailbone broke.
“I was in excruciating pain,” Kim told The Huffington Post.
Despite this, Kim pushed on and gave birth to a healthy baby… boy! Ouch. Yay! Not a girl! What?!
It’s a boy!
Photographer Susannah Gill was capturing baby Theo’s birth and told Huffington Post that the moment the exhausted mum realised that they’d been wrong about the gender was a special one, especially after a particularly stressful birth.
“The midwife handed the baby to Kim in a blanket, and she took a peek. She’d really convinced herself this baby was a girl because her belly was showing in such a similar way to her first pregnancy,” Susannah said.
Of course, we now know that Kim was wrong! Susannah’s images perfectly capture Kim’s feelings when she realised it was a tiny boy she was holding, rather than the girl she assumed she’d been carrying.
“The photo makes me laugh because it shows how much I could talk myself into things. It was as if someone had told me definitively I was having a girl ― that’s how convinced I was,” Kim said.
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Susannah Gill-Photographic Storytelling (Instagram) | Mother: Kim Guiley | Doula : Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective (Instagram)
Secretly hoping
Kim and Travis had suffered a miscarriage between Hazel and tiny Theo, and her pregnancy had been difficult due to hyperemesis gravid arum.
Kim says that she had convinced herself that she’d be adding another girl to their family, partly because the couple had decided this was their last child and she didn’t want to get her hopes up that this final pregnancy would result in a boy.
“I come from a family with one girl and one boy, and as a parent, I wanted the experience of raising both a boy and a girl,” Kim told Huffington Post.
Despite sneakily being excited about the prospect of a boy, she mostly wanted a healthy, happy baby.
“Finding out we had a healthy baby boy was this culmination of our losses and struggles.”
