Note: We shot this two week ago. Before the fires. We shot this with the windows open. I had just finished doing an outdoor photo shoot with an extremely talented local photographer and asked her if I could borrow this red “pregnant belly” dress.

I was so tired this day, this week. I felt drained beyond anything I’ve felt in a while. I found out right after we did this that I’m very anemic so have been taking lots of iron supplements, under my midwife’s supervision and in conjunction with magnesium and multiple supplements to ahem, aid in digestion. Ah third trimester joys. But it had me thinking about the nature of blood and how it relates to birth, life and all things. Subconsciously, I think it was guiding my explorations here.

This red dress
reminding me of the beauty and the blood
of birth
the surrendering
the tenuous nature of everything
the blood that bonds mother and baby
in their joint effort
to arrive.

Blood does not always mean pain
Blood can cleanse
It can reinvent and reinvigorate
and it can drain you.
It can take you to the brink of your very existence.

It can mean so many different things.
It can tell you something is wrong
or it can let you know it is time.
Or it can tell you it is over.

Menstrual blood, placental blood, the blood of birth, the blood of life.
The connection between birth and death is so amorphous. Another doorway.

I’ve been talking to my children about how there will be blood when I give birth (and big sounds, and tears, and maybe even some screaming from mommy)
and that they need not be afraid.

Baby born in blood, amniotic fluid, and vernix
Mother and child
Bound by placenta, umbilical cord, effort, sweat, and love.
And blood.

#31weeks