Blossoming?

July, 2010.

Nikon F90X, 50 mm 1.8, Fujifilm Neopan 400.

Selfportraits 33 weeks pregnant.

Do all the mothers-to-be have to be beautiful, live their pregnancy joyfully, eagerly expecting their newborn?

I wasn’t pretty at all, I couldn’t sleep horizontally anymore, on pain of drowning myself in my own gastric acids. I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid. I never wanted to be a mother. I made a partial denial of my pregnancy.

I kept my child tho, because of the pressure of patriarchy, the insidious way it suggests that all women have to give birth, in order not to let that uterus empty.

This is not nature. This is nurture. I never mastered that skill. I never wanted to.

They induced my labor, and the pain I felt was far beyond your imagination. I tried to kill myself because of the pain, by jumping through the window of my hospital room. They said they coudn’t give me analgesics. After 18 hours of labour without that holy Peri-dural I sought again and again, my child was born. I love him so much, he’s my favourite human on earth. But I wish I had the strenght not to become a mother.