The Best of Birth Photography 2020
Despite a year full of challenges and refunds for the births I did not attend, there were many more I still was able to be part of. I am forever grateful to be a person families welcome into their sacred spaces. There is unimaginable responsibility that comes with making a commitment to being in these moments, to documenting these moments and to delivering them at the right time in a postpartum journey. This work is nurturing, it’s filling up emptiness, it’s creating beauty in a space often viewed as anything but. So for every person who took the time to look through these few photographs representing some of my favorite moments in Birth Photography this year— I thank you. Your support means the world to me.
tenacity.
This is what it looks like when the odds are stacked against you… and you overcome. This is what it looks like when you make it through four full days of preterm labor, without medication, ultimately welcoming your 34 week VBAC baby boy into your arms. This image represents so much more than that too. It represents what we can do when we come together to support a mother— truly support her.
Sarah gave birth in January, though her due date was just after when we started sheltering. I was able to come up to the hospital several times over the four days her water was ruptured and provide encouragement, pain relief, comic relief and activities for idle hands. Her husband was free to continue to work while other family stayed with her as things were clearly slow in the beginning. Though she wasn’t able to walk the halls, Sarah was free to otherwise labor as she wanted in her room. She could have the specific support person she needed at each stage of her labor. And when things very, very quickly became intense and overwhelming, she was able to have both the physical, reassuring support of her husband at her side as well as my own words of affirmation, encouraging her that she was only minutes from the finish line, assuring her she was safe, assuring her husband that the doctor they had chosen was exceptionally talented at forceps and Sarah screaming, “I’m dying,” at the top of her lungs was a completely common experience in childbirth.
I think about the birth Sarah would have had should she have gone full term. 1. I wouldn’t have been there, that’s a certainty. 2. I’m not sure how her story would have ended. That’s not to say that she couldn’t have done this without me: Sarah did this all on her own! But the tenacity that stems from unconditional validation is potent. It seeps into you and feeds your soul in labor. This image represents so much for me. It represents what we lost for millions of women across the world: a strongly supported birth, evidence based care, decision making without fear or coercion.
knot.
1 in 2000 births occur with a “true knot”. Oftentimes, these knots can be surrounded by a rhetoric of risk. I was amazed to see such a perfect, true knot at this waterbirth. Despite that narrative, we were able to meet a perfect baby girl that morning.
When I drove home from this birth, I reflected on God’s plan. I saw clearly in my mind the knot that represented the strife and turmoil in our lives. I felt the anxieties and hardships that crash into us and become all we focus on. Our near misses. But I looked up and saw even more clearly— a mother’s smile. Eyes closed, embracing her perfect child, laughing. And here was God in that moment. He was both with us in the knots in our lifelines, covering us in his love so we can move through these hardships. And He was with this mother’s sweet peace that came over the whole room, the plan having unfolded.
trust.
This birth had me deeply reflecting on my own births and the things that were missing from it. I chose people who I loved to attend my births. I chose people who I knew wanted to see my child born.
And if I could go back and choose again, choose differently, I would. I would choose this— a birthing partner who would not just hold space for me… but would hold me. A person who would not be afraid to step in and be not just a reassuring exclamation in pushing stage, but a quiet force throughout the hardest parts of my labors to reassure, to support me.
Truthfully, I am not sure that person really exists in my life. I think for many birthing people that is true. I realize that what I truly wanted was a doula. This father was absolutely assuming that role, and it was beautiful to see the trust between them unfold as he held her there in the water.
vernix.
It’s a baby butt covered in vernix. Do I even need to say more?!
frangible.
That’s a real word alright. You can Google it! And it captures a good part of this whole sort of mood here. Even when you are not a first time parent, this feeling is always what you come back to. It’s been likely years since you held such a new human in your arms and you seem to hold them with your body. Your partner beside you reflexively moves with their whole body too, a shadow of your own. Ugh. Just love.
waiting.
My last birth before our worlds were turned upside down. I drove back and forth from Macomb multiple times to balance being an asset to this family and respecting their need for privacy. What I love most is how human these nurses feel in this image. Not a mask. Not a nametag. A whole human, capable of expressing emotively. There’s a beautiful moment here that happens when mom rests after this contraction. She opens her eyes and sees the reassuring face of a healthcare worker she barely knows, but trusts implicitly. But that nurse in those moments is sometimes your only tie to what’s real in childbirth. Her ability to coach you, her words, her touch. I respect our need to protect healthcare workers since March, but I miss how inviting and intimate a simple smile could be.
between worlds.
This is another one of those images that is so powerful it just kind of speaks for itself. I love how each set of hands is so different. The mother’s close friend is anxiously flexing, the father is holding himself back in awe of his wife’s ability and focus, the midwife is the picture of peace. You can see the blood pulsing through dad’s arms, the age lines on the hands of the experienced midwife… all as we quietly let this mother deliver her baby into her own arms.
earthside.
Uhhhmmm. I’m speechless. That’s all.
motherhood.
I love so many of the postpartum images in this birth. The joy these parents feel is contagious. Their relief at having the redeeming birth they had hoped for is tangible. Dad’s finger reaching down to touch his baby’s hand. Mom’s locked gaze onto that little face. The hair. The floating vernix pieces. The ease that she holds her with. All of the tension, the anticipation, the adrenaline has come to its peak. And this is all that remains in it’s effervescent intimacy.