When I was in labour with my second, there wasn't too much for my doula to do -- so she picked up the camera and took photos. And they are amazing. There is a black and white photo of my doctor catching my son and she looks so happy. 

I love them. But I don't show them to anyone (including my son). But they really do show the miracle, the teamwork and moment of his birth. (My doctor, however, has a framed copy on her wall.)

The fact that these beautiful black and white photos exist is a fluke. As much as I love them, would I hire a professional to take photos during the birth?

When I was first diagnosed with a placental abruption and put on bedrest for 8 weeks, someone (who shall remain nameless) asked me if it was the stress that did it.

As if stress could actually physically move my placenta a millimetre away from the uterine wall and make it start bleeding. Please. Blaming stress on pregnancy issues or fertility problems is blaming the victim -- and there is very little science behind it. 

Slate did a takedown of this old wives tale and explained that stress and anxiety has very little affect on pregnancy or fertility issues.

Allison Schaffer reports that a British study in 2011 looked at 14 different studies on IVF and reported that anxiety did not change outcomes: "In other words, women with more extreme levels of anxiety or depression were just as likely to get pregnant after a single cycle as women with milder levels."

What about pregnancy? Can stress and anxiety harm your unborn baby? A Danish study looked at 78,000 Dutch women and found that those with the highest self-reported stress levels gave birth a mere two days earlier than the women who reported little stress. In fact, reports Amanda Schaffer, fetuses whose mothers reported higher levels of distress tended to be more active in utero, a positive developmental sign.

So, if the next time a doctor or well-meaning relative gives you the "just relax for the baby's sake" speech. You can tell them to lay off because being told to constantly "think positive" is just a recipe for more stress, and while that won't harm the baby, it can cause heartburn. 

Were you ever told to "just relax"? Do you think anxiety affected your pregnancy?

Want more chaos? Last year, I reported that Beyoncé breastfed in public (reportedly) and how that can change the world.

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My editor here at MSN.ca went on maternity leave this week and I wanted to leave her with a post full of wisdom and mirth to light her path to new motherhood. But life got in the way, which is definitely the first lesson of motherhood -- your agenda is no longer yours alone.

I was trying to think of what sage advice I would give someone who was moments away from having their first baby. And all I could come up with are the usual bromides that get doled out at baby showers and by experts on morning TV. So I compiled a list of my faves, ignoring or forgetting all the ones I don't agree with. These are cliches, but try as I might I couldn't come up with much more that was wiser.

Remember:

The scene is straight from a TV writer's playbook: A pregnant woman is racing to the hospital early when she is stopped for speeding and gives her birth at the side ofthe road. But this wasn't on TV, this happened in Eastern Ontario last weekend.The police officer thought he was going to give her a ticket but instead he had to help her deliver the baby at the side of the road. 

Tori Spelling is gracing the cover of Us Weekly this week with the dramatic "We Almost Didn't Make It" headline cradling tiny baby Finn.

And while it's melodramatic, it's true. Tori had placenta previa while pregnant with Finn - a condition where the placenta covers the cervix and can cause bleeding - and if the placenta had ruptured she and Finn could have both died. 

A TV host, doctor, and father of three tried a daring experiment: he underwent simulated labour pain to see if he, on behalf of men everywhere, could take it.

With an obstetrician and physiologist at his side, Dr. Andrew Rochford hooked up electrodes to his abdomen that were timed to mimic the contractions of a woman in labour for the first time.

A Canadian couple paid $40,000 just to make sure they had a baby girl. 

They already had three healthy boys at home, but the mother always saw herself as a mother to a girl so they kept paying until happened. Sex selection is illegal in Canada so the obsessed couple had to turn to the U.S. to make sure their fantasy of having a girl came true. 

I sure hope that kid likes pink.

The newest buzz about Jessica Simpson doesn't have to do with her own wardrobe choices and her body image. But her baby Maxwell's.

Jessica was on the new Katie Couric show, debuting her "new post-baby body" and her whole "I'm just you, I'm no supermodel" rhetoric. There was a tease about a bikini shot coming up and then, after the break there was a picture of little 4-month-old Maxwell Drew in a yellow crochet bikini. 

First, he took away New Yorkers giant sodas and now Mayor Bloomberg has his sights set on baby formula in hospitals.

Bloomberg's new breastfeeding program, Latch On (yes, really), will make sure that formula is kept behind door and no formula swag or keepsakes will be given out. 

By the beginning of my fourth month of my first pregnancy, I was starting to get irritated with my co-workers. Sure, I worked the 1 p.m. - 8 p.m. shift and was not really part of the office clique, and the dress code of a Seattle newsroom is definitely super casual. But couldn't they tell that I was wearing my husband's shirts on top of sweatpants to work everyday?