Perinatal Resources

Birthgiver Resources

The Postpartum Collection came to fruition 373 weeks after I became pregnant, when I was finally ready to share my story. Throughout my pregnancy, my anxiety spiraled. I referred to my son as my “spawn” because calling him a “baby” was too painful to bear; I had read such devastating maternal and infant mortality rate statistics that I was perpetually holding my breath, bracing for the worst. I found my power in childbirth, and for a couple days, let my guard down. The next day my son was rushed to the NICU with a congenital heart defect and I plummeted into a deep depression that left me quietly drifting. The first year of his life was like living underwater: dreading every cardiology appointment; setting impossibly high standards of motherhood for myself; filling notebooks recording his sleep, milk intake, and milestones to prove I was thriving. Though I was able to fool doctors and family members, most days I struggled to leave the house, shower, or get dressed. I found the smallest ray of light in a watercolor course, gifted by my husband after my son recovered from heart surgery, that opened the door for my return to making. But it wasn’t until the pandemic, just before my son’s fifth birthday, that everything I’d quieted flooded back. I left a tearful message for a therapist I’d never met. After a few weeks of even more tearful sessions, I picked up charcoal sticks I hadn't touched since college. In the pages of a discount sketchbook, abstracted forms began taking shape, stark against the white of the paper like nothing I’d ever created before.

The works that emerged each trace an arc of anxiety, fear, and strength. Pebbled black strokes and fleshy rust tones translate the quiet struggles of matrescence, inviting other mothers to layer their own stories onto the work. While confronting my traumas throughout the creative process was therapeutic, the sharing of this work has brought about the most resonance and healing. The research I began in pregnancy has grown beyond the scope of my own circumstances and has become something I passionately advocate for beyond the studio in my work with mental health and perinatal health organizations. I’ve compiled resource lists addressing Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs), reproductive rights legislation, and racial disparities in maternal mortality; this research grounds my lived experience in the broader structural context. By being open and honest with ourselves and each other, we build a community that becomes a source of power, empathy, and validation.