Letters to My Daughters

My mother doesn't have photographs from the day I was born. Not because cameras didn't exist — they did. But because no one thought to pick one up. The room was busy. The doctors were focused. My father was overwhelmed. And so the most transformative moment of my mother's life went undocumented.

She tells me about it sometimes. The light in the room. How cold the air was. How my cry sounded like a question. She remembers everything — but she has nothing to hold.

What I want for you

When I started this work, I didn't fully understand why it pulled me so hard. I just knew that every time I pressed the shutter during a birth, something in my chest unlocked. It took years to realize I was making the images my mother never got. Over and over. For every family that walked through my door.

I was also, without knowing it, building something for you.

The images I keep

There are photographs on my hard drive that will never go on a website. They're mine. Me, swollen and laughing. Me, gripping the edge of the tub. Me, meeting you for the first time with mascara down my face and my hair matted and the most ferocious love pouring out of every cell in my body.

A friend held the camera. I barely noticed. But I will never stop being grateful.

What I hope you'll know

That your entrance into this world shattered me open in the best possible way. That you were wanted with a wanting I didn't know I was capable of. That I do this work — this sacred, exhausting, beautiful work — because every mother deserves proof that she was magnificent.

Including mine. Including me. Including, one day, you.