When a pregnant woman is told the sex of her baby during an ultrasound then wheels are set in motion and she begins to choose names, buy clothes and even starts decorating the nursery.

Now imagine the surprise you’d feel if seconds after delivering your baby, which you were thought was going to be girl, you’re told you’ve actually had a boy!

This is exactly what happened to Tasmania’s Koto Nakamura and husband Sina Niakansafy.

Koto’s immediate reaction of shock and surprise was captured perfectly by birth photographer Jessica Jackson.

The funny thing was, during labour, Koto’s nurse was telling her a funny story of a woman who thought she was having a girl but actually had a boy. “We were all laughing and joking, saying ‘oh gosh imagine if that happened to Koto’ we really didn’t believe it was possible,” Jessica said.

So convinced were the couple that they were having a girl, that they had even picked out her name- Hinata. So imagine Koto’s surprise when she heard ‘it’s a boy.’

“She was saying “not Hinata?’ Jessica said.
“Once she took a look for herself and it sunk in they were beyond excited and Sina was planning camping trips with his son.”

The baby boy was named Taiga which means big and gracious in Japanese. It’s the first baby for the couple.

Jessica has been a birth photographer for four years but has never experienced this kind of surprise.
“I knew I had managed to capture Koto’s initial reaction as it happened, but I was worried because of all the excitement and laughter that it may not have been bang on in focus,” she said.
“The look I captured was her saying ‘a boy? Jess am I hearing this right’, I remember saying to her, ‘Yes you have a son!”
“It was the first image I opened when I got home to edit.”

Jessica described what it was like spending some days with the family before the birth of Taiga.
“I got to really experience the highs and lows in that delivery room and capture all of that for them to look back on,” she said.
“The excitement and the cheering in Japanese coming from Koto’s mum is a moment I will never forget, the moment of relief as the baby was put on to Koto’s chest was pure bliss, but then came that big surprise. The laughter, the excitement and the tears, actually left me without a voice for a week, it was an absolute dream to be witness and document the birth of this baby, and how awesome for Taiga to have the exact look on his mum’s face to look back on.”

Photos courtesy of Jessica Jackson