This was nothing compared to what came after that and I was entirely unprepared for: an emotional rollercoaster with a lot of peeing on my own pants in between. Tripod? Cameras? Remote? Forget about it: solo motherhood only allows me to photograph from my phone and with a very particular point f vew. Still, its greatness and challenges will never be fully revealed.
I tried to photograph my own labor; I set up a tripod, a camera, and a remote in the hospital room. At some point during the 27 hours it lasted, or the 4 hours trying to push out a ginormous baby, someone tripped on it, and my camera broke.
This was nothing compared to what came after that and I was entirely unprepared for: an emotional rollercoaster with a lot of peeing on my own pants in between. Tripod? Cameras? Remote? Forget about it: solo motherhood only allows me to photograph from my phone and with a very particular point of view. Still, its greatness and challenges will never be fully revealed or documented.
I, an archivist who has pledged for chrome and positive film cameras, had to fully embrace an iPhone's snap digital quality. Not only that, I promised myself I would take 1 photograph of my daughter every day for 1,000 days. 244 have gone so far. Nothing fancy, it can reflect something of our day together, sometimes it's just a snap of her sleeping once I get home, sometimes documentation of her poop for the pediatrician, a hospital tag when we went to the ER, sometimes a video of me singing to her while tears covered my eyes because COVID had hit us hard. It forces me to look at her every day, to be a present parent, but ultimately to keep my promise that, wherever I go, she comes with me. Be it my thesis exhibition and graduation (yes, single parent, working almost full time, and still going to graduate school) or my planned fieldwork at the end of this year.
I was considered reproductive challenged, with 3 previous surgeries for ovary torsion and endometriosis. Elderly primigravida was always the description in my medical chart. It came as quite a surprise to be pregnant at the age of 37 after only 2 months of dating a high school sweetheart while photographing the pandemic in Brazil. Later, he was revealed to be a very abusive man. To be psychologically, emotionally, and mentally healthy to raise my daughter, I had to embrace solo motherhood.
Because of that, I stayed in 7 different houses in 3 countries during those 9 long months. Until pregnancy, I didn't even have a home. I drove U-Haul, moving out of my studio with a belly that could barely fit before the wheel. I worked until 3 am, and 2 hours later, my labor started. As a Latina in the US, I am aware of the glass ceiling I must break, and my career had always been my focus until this tiny human came into my life. She completely shifted every single value I had.
I didn't know I would pee in my pants and wear diapers myself in the following months, but that was common. That breastfeeding was a full-time job in itself. That I wouldn't have time to wash my hair until I could start doing it while bathing my baby at the same time. I would feel like running away many times, but that was ok. Although I had been athletic my whole life and with a great deal of corporal awareness, I wouldn't recognize my body for a very long time.
With (solo) motherhood, I learned to be vulnerable, create support villages, and accept tiredness and my physical limitations. I had to bond with strangers, learn how to ask for and let people help, but above all, rely on the siblinghood of my constellation of friends that I call family.
