Welcome...

Thanks for visiting my blog!

A few things about me...my name is Brianne. I am an on-location, lifestyle photographer located in San Diego, CA. I absolutely adore my family. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful (but wild) 3 year old daughter, who keeps me on my toes and baby girl #2 on the way. Besides my obvious passion for photography, I also love fashion (aka shopping), traveling, wine tasting, dinner with my girl friends and spending time with my family.

My photography style is very natural, non-traditional and full of emotion. I LOVE natural light and am on a never-ending journey for the perfect, beautifully lit location. As a lifestyle photographer, I find pure joy in documenting your family from the eye of an observer, someone peeking into your daily life. My goal is to capture your life, your family, as it is right now. That is what lifestyle photography is all about...real, everyday life.

Go ahead and read through my blog…you are sure to learn lots about me, my family and my adorable clients! I love to share new adventures in my life, sneak peaks of recent client sessions and of course, my beautiful daughter…so if that sounds interesting, make yourself comfy and stay a while! And feel free to leave me comments, I love hearing from my readers!

Once again, welcome to my blog and my crazy life!

home sweet home…
brianne brose | san diego lifestyle photographer

I just wanted to let you all know that Marlowe is home from the NICU after a 16 day stay and is doing very well.  We are struggling a bit with the breastfeeding and adjusting to having 2 little girls in our home now…but we are beyond thrilled to have her home with us and to start our life together.  I can’t believe how long of a journey we had to get to this point and that she is finally all my own.  I truly can’t believe how much I love her and how much all of this drama has really bonded her and I.  She is so special and such a tiny little fighter.  Thank you all for your continued prayers.  And I swear, soon I will be doing “real” pictures of her.  It is pouring rain today, but I just wanted to show how tiny she is in her crib.  She is not a fan of not being held just yet…so these were not easy shots to get.  And don’t judge her old man hair-do, nobody told her that wasn’t in style, LOL.

update on marlowe’s nicu stay…
brianne brose | san diego lifestyle photographer

I am so sorry for the lack of updates…but life in the NICU has been a completely exhausting roller coaster.  We spend a lot of our day there and trying to divide ourselves between the 2 girls has been really rough.  Thank god my mom is here to help with Olivia and give me rides back and forth to the NICU bc I am unable to drive for 2 weeks following my c-section.

Marlowe is still struggling to eat and digest her food.  She is currently taking 3 bottles and 5 tube feeds…but typically the 3 bottle feeds end up as tube feeds as well bc she is just to exhausted to finish her bottles.  They want her drinking 38cc right now and she is able to take between 15-22cc on her own, then the rest is fed through her tube.  They have decided to treat her for jaundice since her levels are not really going down and they think it might help some with the lethargic issues during feeding times.

I am officially a pumping maniac…the nurses in the NICU joke that I could supply the entire NICU with breastmilk.  I pumped at work with Olivia for 14 months, so it feels like the good ol’ days, haha.  I have milk coming out my ears and my baby girl better start eating up or it will all go to waste.  For the record, I am sick of all this pumping nonsense and looking so forward to breastfeeding my baby.  I know it won’t be easy, since currently I am not allowed to even try.  They say she is just too lethargic and would likely choke on it and waste way too much of her little bit of energy trying.  It breaks my heart, but I will continue to pump til our time comes.  And if our time never comes, god forbid, I will pump til she is at least 2.  I am a big time breastfeeding mommy and this has been one of the hardest things on me bc I feel like we NEED that bonding time.  But I just need to remember that our time will come.

On Saturday we received some scary news.  Her newborn screening tested positive for Congential Hypothyroidism, which means she will need to take a thyroid hormone replacement her entire life.   After speaking with her endocrinologist, they informed us that they believed that Marlowe was born without a thyroid completely, rather than just having a deficiency.  We were told she would be transported via ambulance to Rady Children’s Hospital on Monday for scans/testing to verify if she has a thyroid and if so, where it was located.  We received the results back from the scans today and they confirmed that Marlowe was born without a thyroid and requires complete lifetime thyroid hormone replacement.  Luckily the news was not shocking since they had prepared us for those results from the time we were notified of the positive screening.

The neonatologist and the endocrinologist believe that once they can find a good level of hormone replacement for her, we will likely see a drastic increase in her alertness and ability to eat on her own.  So while being scary news, it seems like once we get it all figured out, she will feel better and come home sooner.   She is also suffering from bradycardia, which is when the heartrate drops below 60bpm.  She was suffering from them around 12 times a day and since we got her on her Levoxyl (thyroid hormone replacement), it has dropped to about 3 a day.  So they also believe her lack of a thyroid was causing the bradycardia.  However, they do know she is suffering from severe reflux, which is also contributing to the bradycardia…when she starts refluxing, her heartrate drops until she spits up or vomits.

All in all, she is doing well but has had a few bumps in the road.  I have a cough today and didn’t want to go into the NICU til it passes…but I did get a call from her doctor and she told me that Marlowe was moved from her incubator to an open crib!  That is awesome news, as it indicates she is able to regulate her own body temperature now.  One step closer to coming home!  She just needs to work on her eating/digestion issues and then she should be on her way out of there.  Unfortunately, there is no telling when that will happen and we just need to put on our patient panties and wait it out.  And believe me, she is worth the wait.

Here are a few crappy iphone pictures to share with you guys…many of them were taken at night, so the quality is REALLY bad, but you get the idea at least!

Here is my very favorite picture of her so far…I can’t wait to get this little girl home and have a newborn session with her.

Here we are holding hands and I was giving her a little help with her paci because she is not quite so good at it, LOL.  Either was Olivia!

Here I am feeding her a bottle…you can tell she isn’t exactly awake and excited about it.

Here we are kangarooing (skin on skin contact with mama)…best night of our NICU stay yet!  I am not sure who needs it more, haha.

Here was the first night I showed up to the NICU to find her in her own clothes!  I was so excited!!!  Even though it looks like a boy outfit, I promise it is considered “unisex” and that some of the elephants have flowers on them.  :)

And finally, here is a picture of her and her daddy…he is so in love with her!  And if you know what Olivia looked like as a newborn, you would know that she looks just like her!  It is crazy.  And she looks so much like me as a baby, even more than Olivia did.

welcome to the world baby girl…
brianne brose | san diego lifestyle photographer

Well, Marlowe Lin made her official entrance to the world on 1/19/10 at 2:56pm via scheduled c-section.  Although the experience of the c-section was not ideal for me, it most definitely turned out to be the best decision for our baby girl.  All of the concerns the doctors had through out my pregnancy turned out to be 100% true and a little more severe than we had thought.  At my last growth scan at 34 weeks, they estimated her weight to be 4lbs 10oz…on her birthday, at 37 weeks 2 days, she weighed in at 4lbs 9oz (she is sooooooooooo tiny!!!!!).  So either they underestimated her weight on the growth scan or she had not gained a single bit in the last 3 weeks she remained in my belly.  They did confirm the velamentous cord insertion and she also had the cord wrapped snugly around her neck.

Due to her size, Marlowe was immediately sent to the NICU.  Fortunately, the additional steroids I received must have been very beneficial because her lungs appear to be doing awesome.  The IUGR has proven to cause all the normal issues it is known for.  Marlowe is having trouble with feeding/digestion, controlling her own body temperature and her tummy is distended due to large amounts of air she can’t seem to pass on her own.  But overall, she is doing very well…just has some hurdles to get through.  In just 2 days, we have already begain the NICU rollercoaster.  We hear a different story on her progress everytime we are there bc her situation can change rapidly.  In the last day she has started refusing feedings, which doesn’t make her pumping mama happy (HAHA), and has had a feeding tube inserted.  The hope is to get enough food in her to strengthen her and give her the desire to start feeding more on her own.

As for me…I am doing ok.  I think I am healing as expected and I don’t feel too horrible.  I have pain and I am pretty damn uncomfortable…but I would do it all over again to ensure my baby girl made her entrance into the world in the safest way possible.  Every single person in this hospital has confirmed we made the best possible decision and that this baby could have never endured labor for multiple reasons.

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers during this whole journey.  I will continue to share more pictures and updates on our newest adventures in the NICU.  They hope Marlowe will be able to come home in the next 10 days or so, but tell me to expect that she could be there til her due date on 2/7.

Here are some pictures from my phone…I will try to get some better pictures of her in the near future.  But for now, these will have to do!

Here she is being checked over by the NICU nurses in my operating room (excuse the blur, my husband was rather shaky, LOL)…

Here is our first family picture with Marlowe…

Here she is waiting for her bed to be ready in the NICU…

And this is the very first time I saw her since the operating room, in the NICU…

And here she is today, getting her occupational therapy and showing off her new feeding tube…

marlowe’s nursery & 37 week belly…
brianne brose | san diego lifestyle photographer

Ok, so her room is totally complete, minus some issues I am dealing with regarding the furniture and the canvas prints I plan to put on her wall from her own newborn session, which I will do when we get home. Her room is so freaking tiny (10×10), so it has been hard to limit what I put in there, while still having what I need. I will be also putting a few baskets in there that my mom bought this weekend, but they will go on the dresser, I believe.

And me…looking LARGE. Not a good shirt choice for pictures, haha. But I didn’t feel like changing and most of my shirts are too short at this point. This is the most pregnant I have ever been! I gave birth with Olivia at 36 weeks 5 days and I am 37 weeks today!  On Tuesday, she will finally be here to meet everyone!  I can hardly wait!

omg, she was agreeable…
brianne brose | san diego lifestyle photographer

Well, I begged her to let me take a few pictures of her to show her baby sister when she is born…and she agreed, can you believe it?!  I tried other approaches first and got the big fat NO, but the second I mentioned giving them to Marlowe, she was all smiles.  I can’t wait til they finally meet!  She only allowed 3 pictures and I had to bribe her with some mini marshmallows, which I usually try to avoid…but heck, it was hard enough for me to lug my fat pregnant self out with my camera as is.