Born in a Pandemic
The first full-term babies conceived during New York City's Covid-19 pandemic were born last December. Having a baby is cause for anxiety in the best of circumstances, and expectant parents now face vast personal change in deeply uncertain times.
But, like many of us living through a global pandemic, these families are both aware of their fears and looking for the beauty existing beside them. This portrait series documents people in the final weeks of pregnancy and during what's called cuarentena in Spanish: the early weeks after giving birth.
When I began this project last Spring, New York City was half asleep. The areas around hospitals buzzed, but the rest of the city was dulled. Still, birds chirped insanely while sirens whined, trees burst with flowers and showered the parks with blossoms turning into colorful mush. And birth continued too.
The time reminded me of my postpartum experiences: time slipped and stuck, the world moved on without me, I was indoors so much that my apartment was a universe. I felt the same claustrophobia and pervasive anxiety that new parents do, and similarly I recognized the piercing joy and intimacy. This virus and the time surrounding childbirth reveal that we are animal, vulnerable and connected.
(Published by The New York Times and The Verge.)