I just came across an exquisite collection of baby photographs by Christian Berthelot. And those unique pictures, now on display at festival in Paris, remind me of what was probably the most special event in my life ?- the night that my daughter was born. Of course, it was the weekend, so I got the on-call doctor with narcolepsy (a neurological?disorder that causes sudden sleep attacks).
Fortunately he was awake when I went into the delivery room. I was lucky. At 7:30 in the evening, I was washing dinner dishes. At 10:20 p.m., less than three hours later, my baby was ready to be born. The doctor was not ready, though.
?Hold it,? the nurse said.
What? Hold it? You’ve got to be kidding! But they weren’t. It seems another woman reached baby delivery ignition moments before me. So I tried to ?hold it.?
At 10:28 p.m. my daughter came into this world. And when I heard her cry, it was a wonderful sound.
The nurses took her, wiped her down, and then showed her to me. She was a funny little thing with an off-center pointed head. But apparently that was due to the birth canal I provided for her descent from unborn to born. And I thought she was an incomparably beautiful baby.
We bonded. Then the nurses took her away, and I was supposed to sleep. But how can you sleep when you have just been part of a miracle?
Photographer?Christian Berthelot?captured something I’ve never seen before. His photographs are stunning introductions to new lives.
Berthelot’s show is on view at the?Circulation(s)?festival in Paris through March 5. He?explains his exhibit,?”Cesar,” in his artist’s statement:
“This project was born of a reality: the birth of my first child! […]?Far from the clich’s and platitudes, I wanted to show us as we are when we are born.?And no matter, whether a cesarean delivery or by natural means, everyone is born naked, tears in the blood and other body fluids.”
The French photographer is privy to the first seconds after a number of babies? births. All of his exquisite photos are after a Caesarean section, where the babies are surgically removed rather than normal delivery.
Berthelot’s first child was born after a C-section and served as the inspiration for this moving series of photographs, he says:
“When I saw [my son] for the first time, he was bloodied and covered in this white substance called vernix. He was like a warrior who has just won his first battle, like an angel out of darkness. What a joy to hear him scream.?”
His beautiful photographs took me back to the first moments of my daughter’s entrance into this world and reminded me that in these chaotic times miracles do exist. Here are a few of the 40 newborn children as they breathe their first breaths:
Baby Lisa – 3 seconds into?life
Baby Ma?l – 18 seconds into?life
Baby Luann – 14 seconds into life
Baby Kevin – 13 seconds into life
