Sela!

Mother's Day Mini Sessions

Birth... a week in images (Day Seven)

Day Seven

Caption: Midwife

[Middle English midwif : probably mid, with (from Old English; see me-2 in Indo-European roots) +wif, woman (from Old English wf).] Word History: The word midwife is the sort of word whose etymology seems perfectly clear until one tries to figure it out. Wife would seem to refer to the woman giving birth, who is usually a wife, but mid ? A knowledge of older senses of words helps us with this puzzle. Wife in its earlier history meant "woman," as it still did when the compound midwife was formed in Middle English (first recorded around 1300). Mid is probably a preposition, meaning "together with." Thus a midwife was literally a "with woman" or "a woman who assists other women in childbirth." Even though obstetrics has been rather resistant to midwifery until fairly recently, the etymology of obstetric is rather similar, going back to the Latin word obstetrx, "a midwife," from the verb obstre, "to stand in front of," and the feminine suffix -trx; the obstetrx would thus literally stand in front of the baby.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

 © Lisa Gendron

Birth... a week in images (Day Six)

Day Five:

Caption: The tools

"As a society’s medical system mirrors its core values in microcosm, so the evolution of medicine can influence the evolution of the wider culture. We must ask, Who do we want to make ourselves become through the kinds of health care we create?" 

Excerpt from: The Technocratic, Humanistic, and Holistic Paradigms of Childbirth
by Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD

This article appears in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics,

Vol 75,Supplement No. 1, pp. S5-S23, November 2001.

EFM

Home Birth Neonatal Resuscitation Equipment

Birth... a week in images (Day Five)

Day Five:

Caption: Birth as the Bridge


"In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. "
-Alex Haley 

©Lisa Gendron

La Teta... to give the breast is to give life...

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.
-Winston Churchill

Birth... a week in images (Day Four)

Day Four:

Caption: The Way

"The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart."
-The Buddah

© Lisa Gendron

Birth... a week in images (Day Three)

Day Three:

Caption: Courage

“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” –Audre Lorde

© Lisa Gendron

Birth... a week in images (Day Two)

Day Two:

Caption: Touch

© Lisa Gendron

Birth... a week in images (Day One)

Day One:

Two weeks ago today my amazing daughter Sela joined my family (in the outside world.) I have been looking at the many images I have taken of families at the births of their children, and contemplating the enormity of the experience- both on a personal, social, and cultural level. I find that the work I make for clients and the body of documentary work I am making on the sociology of birth both exist in a dual space- the vacuum of personal and often medical spaces in which they are shot, and in my camera, but also in a larger emotional and cultural spaces of society.

I see an emerging picture of the struggle to bring a new human life into the world, and also a slowly focusing sense of what it is that we value in birth.

Birth bares us. It strips away pretense, reveals our true nature. Passionate, fierce, vulnerable, afraid and brave. The gesture of birth is raw. Body fluids, skin, caresses, machines. We dance with the technology that guards life and pushes us to question the capability of the human body.

Breath is the goal...

Steadies the heart of the fetus... keeps the galloping of heart monitor steady, the mother at her center.

Fills the lungs, displaces the primordial ocean of the aminion world- makes us land mammals.



Caption: Breath


I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
-Sylvia Plath

© Lisa Gendron

A Home Water Birth with Baby H

Every birth I have ever been at has been a unique experience. I was thrilled to be invited to the birth of this family's third child. An evening call; a rainy drive to the corner of the state; an adventure to a warm home, full of love, welcoming a baby boy. I somehow squeezed my huge pregnant self into the bathroom to witness this birth, surrounded by a joyful crew.


Here is mama just before birthing, giving the wide eyed sister a kiss.

The birth pool, abandoned for the bathroom tub with the baby making a speedy appearance...

This quote from the Red Tent by Anita Diamant describes this moment between mother and baby so eloquently:

"There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment. Like every mother since the first mother, I was overcome and bereft, exalted and ravaged. I had crossed over from girlhood I beheld myself as an infant in my mother's arms, and caught a glimpse of my own death. I wept without knowing whether I rejoiced or mourned. My mothers and their mothers were with me as I held my baby." 

Baby D is born: Memorial Hospital Birth Photography

I had the honor of being the doula for this lovely family, and photographing baby D's first moment in his mother's arms. This amazing momma is also a photographer, and making images of her son's birth that I know will be treasured gave me great joy! Happy birthday baby D...