I have written and erased and rewritten this blog post so many times; I’m finding it difficult to ascertain where the story truly starts because its beginnings seem to stem from so many separate memories all at once.
For me, my journey toward photographing Chelsea’s birth finds its roots back in 1985. I am a kid in a kindergarten class, minding my own business, when a pair of classmates get in an argument over a plastic Spiderman lunchbox. One shoves the other and he stumbles backward, ultimately cracking his head open on a coat hook. Blood gushes from the wound and I stand there. Paralyzed. But then suddenly I’m woozy and there is an acidic feeling rising in my throat. Moments later, I am losing my breakfast in an adjoining bathroom while images of blood race through my head as if on a reel that won’t slow no matter how hard I try to stop it.
My very next trip to the doctor requires a shot and I’m terrified that when the needle punctures my skin I will bleed and vomit again as I had done at school. As time goes on, my fear of blood steamrolls into a fear of all things medical, so much so that a simple trip to the doctor has the potential to result in a fainting episode, followed by an intense nausea that takes too long to kick. Soon it becomes that the very thought of going to the doctor or visiting a family member in the hospital sends me into a cold sweat; the prospect of one day giving birth in a hospital, surrounded by doctors, machines, needles, terrifies me so badly, I am convinced it may never happen. Suffice it to say, the thought of one day being present to experience someone else give birth is positively inconceivable.
It’s August 24, 2014. I pull up outside of Saint Peter’s valet parking area to drop something off for my sister, who is inside in the thick of labor in the delivery ward. Her husband meets me outside and when I ask how she’s faring, he gives a brief report. I imagine Tara upstairs in intense pain, her body under the control of doctors and nurses, needles in her arms. The world around me begins to spin. My hands and feet start their familiar tingling. The voices of people passing on the sidewalk become echoes and the colors of the sky, the grass, the passing cars swirl into darkness. I faint right there on the sidewalk beside the hospital. People walk around me. I later laugh at the irony.
Fast foward to January 30, 2016. I’m out to dinner with friends when I get the text from Chelsea saying that her contractions are getting closer together and that she and her husband, Josh, are headed to the hospital. She’s had a few false labor scares already, so she says she’ll let me know if St. Peter’s admits her. I wrap up with my friends, say goodnight, and head home. As I’m getting my son ready for bed, Josh texts me. 10:30. “They are keeping us here 🙂 “. I mentally run through my short list of things to do as I nurse my son to sleep –change my clothes, make a cup of coffee, re-check my camera bag for all the must-haves– and I text Josh back: “Awesome. I’ll be there in about an hour (I’m 1/2 hour from the hospital.) Text me if anything changes.” As I’m laying my son down in his crib, my phone bings once more. I glance down. “Waters broke,” the screen reads.
I fly out of the house faster that I thought humanly possible, shocking the hell out of my husband who knows it takes me eight hundred years to get ready to go anywhere. With a cup of coffee in hand and my eyes constantly scanning the rearview mirror for red and blue flashing lights behind me, I speed down I-90. I can’t miss this birth. I will be damned if I miss this birth.
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Chelsea is also a photographer. She and I met about two years ago when I invited her to join a small network I created of local female photographers. Photography can be an isolating endeavour when you spend most of your time sitting alone at a computer editing, and I was seeking a support group of sorts, as well as a backup system in the event something were to happen to one of us and we needed butt-coverage. I invited Chelsea into the group because I adored her art, and we chatted from time to time online, exchanging tips and info. We met in person a few months later for a headshot photo exchange, and I knew I liked her instantly. She’s warm and open and so very encouraging and she exudes the kind of vibe you want in your life. Following the photoshoot, we grabbed dinner and it was during dinner that she told me the story of the birth of her son, Jax. Ironically, my husband, Marty, and I had just found out we were expecting, but we hadn’t yet whispered a word of it to a soul. As Chelsea sat there telling me how empowering and absolutely incredible the birth was, I felt something very real shift in my thinking. For the first time ever, I thought “Maybe I can do this birth thing. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so terrifying after all.”
About a year went by and one day Chelsea messaged me saying that she and Josh were thinking about having a second, and we chatted about how to best endure a busy wedding season with a large pregnant belly in tow (I’d just done it myself 6 months prior). It was only a short time later that she messaged again to tell me that they were expecting! I was elated for them. Over the next few months, through the magic of the app Voxer, we became fast friends and I had the honor of being able to follow her pregancy journey closely, eagerly anticipating the updates after every doctor visit, and talking with her about the incredible emotions of pregnancyhood. So when she came to me in December and asked if I would be there to photograph the birth, I almost jumped out of my skin. It was a no-brainer. Of course I would!
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Anyway, back to January 30th. I make it to St. Peter’s in a record 20 minutes, miraculously managing not to get pulled over in the process. I hastily pull into the parking garage, throw my car in park, grab my bag and run inside. As I enter through the valet parking entrance, I run right past the spot where I fainted on the sidewalk just four short years ago and I literally laugh out loud at myself that I am here, in this situation, willingly entering the hospital, choosing on my own volition to be there in the room to witness and capture a birth. I imagine Chelsea upstairs, in pain, and all the millions of feelings surging through her at that very second. And I feel so bound to her and to every other mother who has ever been there before. And for a moment, the world just seems to stop.
I recall the surreal peace of the birth of my son, Covyn, just one year and one month earlier; the sweet pain of each un-medicated contraction as it brings him closer to his birth, and me and my husband, Marty, closer to meeting him. I recall Marty’s hands pressing on my back as I pushed through the tightening in my belly, his fingers smoothing my hair back, his encouraging words in my ears. I recall my unending lack of fear, my calm assurance that everything is happening in the right time, just as nature intended. I recall the gentle smiles of our doula, nurse, and midwife as they coach me through pushing. And, finally, I recall the life-altering, absolutely euphoric moment when they lay my son on my chest and I revel in the sweet relief that it is all over. That he is here. That all I have to do in this moment is look at him, hold him, and love the heck out of him.
It’s 11:20 and I run into the hospital, camera bag slamming against my hip with each stride. Up the elevator and to room 3104 I head. I knock and enter, and there in the middle of the room, beside the bed stands Chelsea. Gown-clad and beautiful. She sways from side to side and smiles through each contraction. They are close now and intense, but she is strong. A sight to behold. Just then, the anesthesiologist shows up to perform the epidural; Josh and I retreat to our waiting ground in the empty hallway. It is nearing 12:00am and it’s as if a curfew has been placed on birth. The nurses quietly converse at their station down the hall, but the space is otherwise vacant of patients, visitors, sounds.
Soon the door to Chelsea’s room opens and we flow back in. It’s sometime around 12:10am. Chelsea lays reclined on the bed with a new look behind her eyes; Sarah, the nurse, is monitering her contractions on a screen beside her. I switch my lens, begin shooting again. And then suddenly there is this talk of feeling like it’s time to push. The epidural didn’t even have time to take, but already the door is gently swaying open as a second nurse enters, then a midwife, and finally Dr. Clark. A table with sterile equipment is wheeled to the end of the bed and I realize that there is no moving from where I stand, no space at either end of the bed to get around, to capture a different view or angle. Everything is happening so quickly, so methodically, but with a calmness so smooth and so easy, it can take your breath away. Chelsea is in the thick of things now and Dr. Clark pulls his stool up to get a look. Suddenly a nurse is saying she can see the baby’s head; that she has hair! And I am shooting from pure blind emotion, hoping against hope that my ISO is cranked high enough to account for the utter lack of light, hoping that I can do justice to this awesome once-in-a-lifetime. I watch Chelsea’s face through the lens. It contorts and relaxes as she moves the baby down with each push. I want to scream at the top of my lungs “You are amazing, you’re doing so well, you are so powerful,” but instead I keep choking on my own breath – sharp, deep inhalations. The energy in the room is so beautiful I want to bottle it; so pure and good, I can taste it. Chelsea grips the side of the bed and bears down one last time. The energy shifts. There may have been words, but all I hear is silence. I leap on a chair and move my eye back to the viewfinder. I zero in on the doctor’s lap and there she is – perfect, pink, and beautiful. Everyone in the room takes a breath. Chelsea looks up, searching for her baby. And as we collectively exhale, Holland Elizabeth belts out her first cries. It is 12:30 am on January 31st.
*****
This is the story of Holland’s entrance into the world. I could talk all day about her mother’s tenacity or how her dear dad cooed and whispered his admiration for her the second he held her in his sights. But there are some things in life for which words do no justice.
As I left the hospital that night, wrapped in the warmth of the moments I just witnessed, I recalled one of the first conversations I ever had with Chelsea – her story of her son’s birth, the experience that brought me so much comfort in the early days of my own pregnancy. Her words stayed with me throughout those nine months, framing my journey toward a beautiful birth of my own, free of the fear that once encumbered me. As I drove the quiet roads toward home, I thought about how interconnected everything is; how every woman’s story is wound together by an invisible thread that binds them one to the next. I thought about how we are all carried along on our journey by the wisdom and cosmic energy of every woman who has walked the way before us.
And I thought of the magic of all the moments that bring us from there to here.
