The series Gestate was started around a year after my first son was born. Having had no real experience with pregnancy, childbirth, or babies the whole thing was new, exciting, and often overwhelming. I would read everything I could get my hands on, but had a hard time reconciling the words on the page with the bizarre things that were happening to my body. It frequently felt like a science experiment over which I had little control. It is one thing to read about labor’s intense abdominal cramps and completely another thing to feel them for yourself. The images in the series are my attempt to more clearly communicate my experience.
Not all the images in the series deal with the unpleasantries of pregnancy and childbirth. One of my favorite images (Flutter) is about the utter unexpected joy of the first time I felt my son move ever-so-gently in my belly. That instant he became a real little person growing in me. He was acknowledging me and I, him. It is a sensation that escapes definition by words on a page. The gravity of that moment made me laugh and cry at the same time (although that could have been the hormones).