Why Birth Photography
For savoring all of it.
The raw art of life.
The pain and the beauty.
The love. The immeasurable JOY.
For the memory keeping
& saving & sharing.
A time capsule of a baby being born & a mother transformed.
My Mama.
When I think about the “why” I see my mom.
This
photo has always been packed in my hospital bag for the births of my two littles. I think it’s my dad holding me up next to her and also taking the photo. I’m wrapped tightly in a hospital blanket. The notorious blue c-section curtain in the background. She’s looking right at the camera and she’s smiling. Though she hadn’t held me yet. I don’t know much of my birth story - I remember being told that she was in labor for over 30 hours before it ended with a c-section. I wish she could tell me her story of becoming a mom, of all those feelings behind that smile. But I have these few photos from the operating room; the emotion in her face, her eyes, her flushed cheeks, her smile, to try to piece it together.
I know I was three weeks early and her mom passed away almost exactly three weeks after I was born. The significance of that didn’t resonate with me until becoming a mom myself - what she went through losing her mom with a newborn, and also the beauty in my early arrival. She always said if I hadn’t been three weeks early her mom wouldn't have met me. How I wish I could sit with her and hear everything.
My mom was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease called Frontotemporal Degeneration or FTD in her early 50s. It’s a rare form of dementia that first affects behavior and then memory and language follow. She was diagnosed my senior year of college while my dad was battling congestive heart failure and was waiting for a heart transplant. When my dad passed away about a year later, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I moved in with my mom to care for her. She lived with us for almost 10 years until she passed away a year ago.
I’m so grateful she was with us when we welcomed our first baby, Henry - he was born on my birthday!! Knowing that we shared the timeline of our pregnancies was such a gift since I couldn't talk to her about it. She seemed to understand that I was pregnant only twice (but twice was miraculous). Once while I was rubbing her hand on my belly she said, “I’m sorry I won’t be able to talk to it very much.” When Henry was born I stopped working to be her full time caregiver along with being a new mama. That’s when I picked up a camera. I started documenting our days with the two of them, baby Henry and mama. I completed a 100 day photography project as a way of processing the grief of her steady decline but also to find the beauty in each day. I wanted her so badly when I was a new mom.
Without my camera I don’t know that I would have been able to find the beauty. I honestly don’t know that I would have made it through - the depends, the messes, the endless sleepless nights, the pain watching her fade further and further away. For years leading up to her passing it seemed she could comprehend and communicate way less than my toddler could. The day after she passed was the day we found out we were pregnant with Harriet; she is now almost a year old. I felt like my mom knew that I was pregnant before we did. Even though she couldn’t speak, I just think she knew. Mom’s just know, don’t they? I could feel it.
My “why” is for savoring all of it. The raw art of life. The pain and the beauty. The love. The immeasurable joy. For memory keeping and saving and sharing. A time capsule of a baby being born and a mother transformed.
I would be so honored to preserve these remarkable moments of meeting your baby for you.