I hadn’t met Aquilla Flemming before I photographed her giving birth. I was sitting on my couch at home when her midwife Chemin texted to say there was a woman in labour and she had given permission for me to take pictures. It was my day off, so I hesitated at first. But as soon as I got to the birthing centre I was glad I had come.
When I arrived, Aquilla and her partner were outside, under a pepper tree. She was sitting on a birthing ball and they were holding hands. It was such a beautiful moment – the birth was special from the outset. Chemin had worked with Aquilla’s mother too, so there was this generational thing. The woman holding Storie, as the baby was called, is a student midwife. It was taken right after Storie was born. She’s still connected to the placenta – you can see the cord in the bottom of the frame.
This shot was part of my project Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy, first published in the New York Times in October 2020. It began when I was thinking about how women were being affected by the pandemic. I had heard a lot of stories about people being forced to give birth alone and I wondered whether it would lead to a rise in home births as people became afraid to go into hospital.
I had a friend who was a doula and I began to talk to midwives in Los Angeles, who introduced me to mothers. A few invited me to photograph their births. I didn’t have any children at the time, and the first birth I witnessed was nothing like I had imagined – it was a long process. The more births I attended, the more I noticed the patterns of slowness and boredom between frenzied moments of activity, as well as how unique each birth was. It’s such a huge thing; such an extreme life change. I hadn’t fully understood that until I had my own daughter a year ago.
There were so many amazing takeaways from this project, about how strong women are, as well as the empathy of the midwives, whose role is so intense they’d often do back-to-back births without any sleep. The energy in the room was always insane, with everyone doing their job to bring the baby into the world. The air was crackling.
A few women having home births ended up having to be taken to the hospital, and at that point, due to Covid protocol, I couldn’t go along. Otherwise I took cues from the mothers and midwives but I was never asked to leave the room. Most of the time they would call me over and say: “You’ve got to photograph this!”
I would never publish anything the mothers weren’t happy with. Having them feel safe when they were in such a vulnerable position was my priority. Only one Amish mother I worked with pulled out, as she felt she was too recognisable. I still get updates from some, and photographs of their children, which is really nice. Aquilla has another child now.
My pregnancy was complicated because of vasa praevia, and the birth was pretty traumatic. I ended up having a C-section and my baby was in intensive care for two months. I never documented anything like that, but I know no birth is the same, and there are many more layers to this project yet to be done, many different stories to tell.
Maggie Shannon’s CV
Born: Boston, 1987.
Trained: Hampshire College (BFA) and the School of Visual Arts (MFA).
Influences: “David Lynch, FSA photographers, Tina Barney, Martin Parr.”
High point: “When someone says my work makes them feel seen.”
Low point: “All the scary unknowns of my 20s.”
Top Tip: “Don’t be afraid to ask questions.”