Story #101 - Nancy Borowick, Brooklyn NY (USA) - Loss of Parents, Difficult Pregnancy, Identity Shift, Doula, Emergency Cesarean Section, Formula Feeding, Breastfeeding, Anxiety & Work
Nancy Borowick is an internationally renowned photographer, author, teacher and speaker. She is a graduate of the International Center of Photography and has exhibited her work in over 100 cities. Working regularly with the New York Times since 2013, Nancy has told the intimate stories of people and places from every corner of the globe. Over the last decade, Nancy has narrowed the focus of her work, telling stories of health, struggle and personal relationships, using compassion, humility and trust as tools to connect with and explore the lives of her subjects.
Most recently, she received the 2018 Humanitarian Award from the organization Women That Soar for her photography and recent monograph, The Family Imprint. The Family Imprint is an intimate story of family, as her parents underwent parallel treatments for stage-four cancer. The story is about life and love more than cancer and death.
I’m sorry I’m late, I overslept. It’s just so quiet here.
We’re not home [in Brooklyn] right now, but in upstate New York at our family house. My parents built this place when they were still alive. My dad had this dream of us all living together here with the grandkids. They didn’t get to enjoy most of it, but my siblings and I are still coming over as many times as we can. And with COVID now, it’s a safe place to be.
My sister is in the main house with her husband, two kids, two dogs, my brother, his wife, and their dog. I have a seven-month-old son, Levi, so I got lucky and landed in the pool house. It’s wonderful to be able to have space to quarantine with people you love, but also be alone when we need to be! The main house’s living room is all toys and kids running around. They took over everything! I think my parents would be happy to see this.
When our son was four months old, we took a vacation in Hawaii. It was at the beginning of March, and what was supposed to be a two-week thing became a two-month stay. We found an Airbnb and quarantined there at first. My husband and I both had a lot of work, but there are worst places to be. At a certain point, though, we knew we’d have to get back to our lives.
Finding a flight was difficult, and flying to Brooklyn with an infant was rough, but we were so homesick. We truly take for granted how lucky we are to have face to face interactions and relationships. In Hawaii, we were going through many ups and downs, and there were moments I wished I’d be closer to my sister, and my mom would still be alive. So we came back. I quarantined for two weeks, then we drove upstate. We’ve been here ever since.
My postpartum backstory begins with the fact that I always loved children. I knew I’d like to have a family, but I was never sure how it’d work with my professional career and how I would come to terms with the compromises and sacrifices having a child implies. Being a freelancer is a one-woman show. If you’re not putting yourself out there and hustling, nothing will happen. You have to be a bit selfish to succeed, and I liked that it was all about me, and I never had to say no to anything.
But then, my parents became sick. First my mom, then my father. Both with stage-four cancer.
I wanted to be with them. I had a great childhood and amazing parents, so I wanted to support them. For two years they went through treatments, and I was there with them for as much as I could be. They both died a year apart: My dad first, on December 7, 2013. Then my mom, on December 6, 2014.
From The Family Imprint
I remember thinking how lucky I was to have had them as parents. I also have great siblings, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to have kids of my own. But after my parents died, I turned 30. The clock started ticking, and I began to feel this void left by my parents, as if a piece of me was missing.
My husband and I talked about it, and both agreed that we wanted some. He would have been happy to have kids years ago, but I never was ready. After my parents’ death, I had to be ok with the idea and take the leap, but I was kind of waiting for a sign.
The sign happened in December 2018. I had been invited to speak at The Real Life Conference for Women and Non-binary Photographers, where many of the attendees were also parents. I got on stage to share my family story, and I was super vulnerable. One of the special things about the human experience is vulnerability. It’s how you connect with people, and I just love that connection. So I went through photographs, and I remember talking about my mother dying and being sad that parents don’t live forever. I ended my speech by saying that maybe, one day, I’ll have a child, but I was also scared and didn’t know when that would be.
After my talk, every mother came to me to say, “You can make it work! Do it!” They told me so many wonderful things about the challenges and how to overcome them, so much that after the conference, I thought, “Maybe I can do this too after all!”
I went off birth control, and one month later, I got pregnant.
I thought it would take longer, and I don’t think I was fully prepared. I was finally ok with the idea of trying to get pregnant, and there we were, getting ready to welcome a child!
We had just traveled to Guam for one last visit, and the day after we landed, I found out I was pregnant. I was tired and nauseous, but I thought it was just the jet lag.
Most of my struggles were prepartum. My first trimester was awful. I hadn’t done enough research, and I went off my anxiety meds pretty quickly. I spiraled and fell into a deep depression. It was bad. I was still photographing a little bit, but I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to lay on the couch and mope.
It was really frustrating because you think that pregnancy is all glowy and joy based on what you see on the internet, but in fact, it is sort of full of lies, and I had a lot of guilt about not feeling this joy I believed I was supposed to be feeling.
I was lucky enough to get pregnant, and I knew this, but I was also so — so miserable.
My body was changing: I had nausea and weird rashes. My feet changed size and were so dry and cracked that I could barely walk under the pressure. My skin broke out, I felt ugly, and I couldn’t figure out how to take the edge off: no drinking, no meds, no eating bad things... thankfully Mac and Cheese brought me some joy.
The whole time, I wished I had my mom. I had a lot of anxiety, and I ultimately went on Prozac. It was a compilation of things that made me a miserable pregnant woman. Part of it was going through it for the first time and not knowing what to expect. I had to relinquish control and accept what was happening. I like being in control, and surrendering is not easy. I know I sound negative, but a lot of it was me managing my own expectations... and I was really fighting the changes. I was rationally on board with the reality that my whole life would change, but it was still hard to wrap my head and world around it.
I had already started to grieve my former identity. I was familiar with the different stages of grief, and by the time I reached my due date, I was ready to simply be done being pregnant! I was the size of a house, everything hurt, and I couldn’t breathe: I was done.
His due date was October 23. I got up that morning, took the dog for a walk, and I thought I had a contraction. I had been told that it is rare that your child arrives on their due date, so I didn’t think too much of it. I had on and off contractions for a while, but I thought they were Braxton Hicks. I was wearing pads all the time because I had no control over my bladder, so when I thought I’d peed myself, I also didn’t think it was a big deal.
I had my 40 weeks appointment that day. I remember going in thinking, “Maybe I should bring my hospital bag?” I wasn’t dilated at all, but my doctor did a test on the “peeing,” and it came back positive for meconium. My water had broken, and she sent me to the hospital immediately, saying the baby needed to be out within the next 24 hours.
I took my sweet time getting there. Picked up some ice cream and walked slowly to the hospital.
My doula couldn’t meet me right away, so I walked around for a while. I think I was slightly avoiding what was about to happen and scared to lean in. I had never been a patient before and was pretty terrified. But we eventually checked in. I have a deadly fear of needles, and of course, it took them five tries to get the IV into my arm. The nurse made some joke about me having “curly veins” which I did not find particularly funny. I was sure this would be the worst day of my life.
My brother is a photographer and was there with us. I also had my doula and husband with me. My plan was to get an epidural as soon as possible, so when they started me on Pitocin to get the ball rolling, the pain and waiting became unbearable. Eventually, they came into the room, and I tried not to think about the giant needle they were putting into my back. Finally, I remember thinking, “Ok, body. Do what you need to do. Let’s get this baby out.”
We hung out for a while, and nothing seemed to be happening. At some point, my doula turned me asked casually asked how I was feeling. I told her that I felt nothing, thankfully. Then, I looked at the screen and saw that I was having a big contraction. She was carefully paying attention to the baby’s heart rate and noticed that it dropped significantly with each big contraction.
Apparently, the nursing staff in the hall was also watching because 19 people came running into the room. Suddenly people were shoving their hands inside of me. They were talking around me, but not to me. My body wasn’t my own anymore. No one told me what was happening, but I learned soon that the dropping of the heart rate was not good. The baby was in distress, and if this happened again, they were going to have to act immediately.
I had already been in labor for 6 or 7 hours at this point, but an hour later, it happened again. The team rushed in and whisked me away to the OR for an emergency C-section. Later, I learned that he was sunny side up and had his cord tightly wrapped around his neck, choking him with every contraction.
Everything about this process, and how it was unfolding, was terrifying. I just wanted my baby out, healthy.
I knew that anything and everything could happen, so I tried to manage my expectations, and when people asked about my birth plan, I just told them simply to have this baby, however it happens!
Once in the OR, a curtain was lifted, and all I could see was blue plastic. I was so tired, overwhelmed, and confused. I remember my husband being there with me, trying to reassure me while also trying to not lose his cool. I couldn’t see anything, but I could sort of feel that something was happening. It was just so strange. I also remember clearly that the anesthesiologist kept asking me if I could feel, “Cold or wet?” as he made sure the medications were doing their job. It was all out of my control, and I knew I had to accept it at this point. I just stared up at my husband, wearing that goofy blue hair cover, trying not to listen to what was happening on the other side of that curtain.
A little after midnight, they took him out, and I remember feeling a lightness in my body like a pressure had been lifted. They brought him around the side and showed him to me. I saw him and thought, “Wow, he looks like an alien.” Why wasn’t my first thought, “Oh my god I love him so much?” Why didn’t I feel anything immediately the way they make it seem in the movies?
There I was, on the table, cut open like a thanksgiving turkey, organs spread out, or so I thought. Everything felt totally surreal and out of body. Thankfully, the baby was fine, but they whisked him away to take measurements and clean him off. According to my husband, the doctor asked if I was doing ok and knew what she was doing on the other side. Apparently, I answered that she was probably “busy putting my organs back in my body.” I remember her nervously laughing and muttering something like, “Well, we don’t want to get into detail but we are just closing you back up.”
The days and nights seem to go on for eternity. Every time they handed me the baby, I was in such discomfort that I became incredibly and increasingly upset. It was a weird dark place to be in. Because of the cesarean, I had to stay at the hospital for 4 more days, and I felt like a prisoner.
I just wanted to go home. I had no control, and my voice was not being heard.
I eventually just accepted that I had to surrender and that I would get through it.
Eventually, I got to go home. That drive from the hospital to our Brooklyn apartment was surreal. How could they let us leave with this baby? We had absolutely no qualifications other than we had a dog we had kept alive for a few years. Within a few hours of settling back in, I started to notice a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach. I knew I would be in pain as I recovered from major surgery, but I did not expect this. I could not find a comfortable way to sit, or stand or lay… so what was I supposed to do?
I remember standing in my living room, pump attached to my swollen breasts, trying not to fall over but also trying not to breathe because even that hurt. I was also so annoyed because it felt like my body was punishing me after all we had been through. Can’t a girl get a break?? And when I wasn’t pumping, I was trying to nurse Levi…and that wasn’t going so well either. To be honest, at this moment, all I wanted to do was throw back a few shots and take a long bath, but no, I couldn’t do either of those things; instead, I got angry. I was so tired, waking up from sleep every 2-3 hours to feed or pump, eating to keep my supply up even though I was having so much stomach pain, and if one more person told me to lay down and relax and binge some TV, I was going to punch a wall.
I couldn’t think straight, and I felt like I was spiraling. On the third evening we were home, my husband, not a doctor, asked where specifically I was feeling the pressure. I pointed to my stomach, and he asked me simply, “Well, when was the last time you pooped?” It dawned on me that it had been days, and all the while, I was taking low dose Oxy, as instructed, but I did not recall the nurse telling me to also take stool softeners. Why didn’t they send that home with me in my notes?
I feel silly now, thinking about it, but once I got my hands on some Colace and GasX, the pain started to dissipate. And this was not your ordinary gas pains. This was knives-in-your-stomach-jabbing-into-your-new-C-section-wound-pain-from-the-inside.
I was relieved but also angry. Angry I didn’t remember to take those things, angry that I was angry, angry that because of this I did very little skin to skin with the baby because holding him hurt everything in my body, and angry that my body, which I had given over to the pregnancy all those months was still not mine again. I let all these feelings fester and grow, and I felt like I just couldn’t breathe anymore.
I was so upset about all of it, most especially about the fact that this was NOTHING like I had imagined it would be. There was no give and take, just I give, and he takes. I had been prepared by friends who told me how hard the first few weeks and months might be, but I was still shocked that I didn’t feel this deep connection, or any real connection, to him. He was just a needy boyfriend, and I was just a milk machine.
Whenever someone exclaimed how in love I must be with Levi, I felt much worse. How could I be in love with this person I’d just met and who needed me to the point of deep exhaustion?
I wanted autonomy over my body, and I didn’t want to feel all this guilt about not wanting to nurse him all the time. I was stuck. I wanted my old body, my old life, my own independence. I thought nursing would be this natural, automatic act, and here I was, dreading that countdown until the next feed. Frankly, I was just really disappointed…in myself, in this situation, in motherhood.
Because we didn’t have parents around to help us, we were fortunate enough to hire some help. They say it takes a village and caring for a newborn, especially after major surgery, is a lot. Who knew there was a right, and wrong, way to change a diaper!?
The weeks passed, and things got a little easier. It must have been around week eight or nine when I finally started to feel connected to Levi. He started smiling, and engaging with me, and giving back. I knew this time would come too, but it felt like an eternity away.
I was still struggling, though. I felt incredibly guilty about breastfeeding, but I hated nursing. It was uncomfortable, and he was never full enough. It made our relationship awkward. I was resentful when he wanted to feed. Then I was sad that I felt like I was starting to resent him, and he did nothing wrong. I wanted to go back on my old meds (not the Prozac) because they really worked for me, but there wasn’t enough evidence around taking them while nursing.
By week ten, which felt like week 100, I had decided that I was done with my maternity leave.
I packed my bags and pumps and flew down to Austin, Texas, to speak at a conference. I had been pumping and storing milk since day one at the hospital to make it easier for my milk to come in and had left over 200 ounces for Levi while I was away. When I wasn’t on stage, I returned to a backroom multiple times to pump in hopes of avoiding the terrifying leak. I wanted to be carefree and networking, but I was angry, tucked away in private, pumping, and this milk wasn’t even going to the baby. It was being dumped, but I needed to do it to keep my supply up.
Friends used to tell me, “Do what’s best for you and it’ll be best for baby.” After that trip, I decided to stop nursing and to stop pumping. What was best for Levi was a happy mom, and I was nothing close to that. The following 48 hours were pretty awful. The engorgement made it hard to sleep, and the guilt seeped into every corner of my body. Was I selfish in quitting this? He was healthy and happy getting formula, but I hated the experience. I hated my body. I hated the expectations I felt like society was putting on me, especially because some women can’t breastfeed or produce. How dare I choose not to? I had a choice in the matter! But those 48 hours passed, and it is truly hard to explain the feeling I felt of that weight lifting off my shoulders and that cloud parting overhead. I could breathe.
I felt free. I loved my son so much and really began to feel and believe it.
It took almost no time before I felt a connection with Levi at this point. The more I started to feel like myself again and went back on my meds, the more I felt like things would be ok. I could delegate the feedings, make time for myself, and see how things could get better. He was waking up to the world, and in a way, so was I, this new world where we existed together in it.
Some sort of balance was restored to the universe.
I still have residual PTSD from his birth. I obsessively kept a journal on my phone in bullet points as things were happening, moment to moment — the journalist in me wanted to remember everything that’d happened because the anxious part of me anticipated being traumatized by the experience. Maybe I was setting myself up to be disappointed? I knew what I was going through might result in trauma because of what I went through with my parents. I was birthing this child, and my body and mind weren’t adapting very well. Once at the hospital, it’s all about the baby, and the mom sort of plays second fiddle.
Now that I’ve had some time to process and reflect, when I think about my birth experience, it also brings up feelings and emotions I remember from when my parents died.
Trauma is trauma, and naming it has helped begin the process of healing.
I’m working through everything with my therapist. I’d initially found her when my parents were sick because I knew I would need to talk things out even before things got really bad. A friend of mine, who’s a conflict photographer, had told me to go ahead and anticipate the trauma instead of waiting for the event to be over. That was really meaningful perspective that I am glad I took to heart. I’m someone who needs to talk things out, and I have anxiety (have I mentioned that?), so anticipating can become deeply overwhelming and debilitating. Losing my parents brought up many things for me, and once I got pregnant, I started feeling nervous about what life would be like without my parents around and even thinking about my own mortality and role as a mother.
How can we make the most of the time we have together without knowing how much time we have left? I used to think about this with my parents, but now I think about it with Levi.
Nancy’s parents on vacation. From The Family Imprint.
This whole experience set me off into motherhood in a really bad way. It took me a long time to “come to terms” with all that had happened, forgive myself for all the guilt that had bubbled up, and realize that not only am I not alone, but my story is not unique, and that brings me some comfort.
What’s been healing for me has been the ability to share this experience with others and hear their stories. At first, I didn’t appreciate it when people would tell their stories when I was only a couple of months postpartum. Learning how their deliveries had been uneventful and the instant joy they’d felt made me feel a bit jealous of them, and it was not a side of me I liked to see manifest. I also realized, especially upon prying (again, the journalist in me has no limits) I came to realize that everyone goes through their own shit. Nothing is perfect, and everyone deals with their stuff in their own ways.
If I am able to get pregnant again, I will make sure not to look at Instagram, especially at the hashtags that align with the same amount of weeks pregnant that I’ll be. Instagram can be pretty surface level and is often not a fair representation of reality.
This leads me to one of my next thoughts: women are so hard on women! There is this perceived shame in quitting nursing, or not being able to or wanting to nurse at all, and no one wins when this kind of pressure is put on fellow new mothers. Once I started to share with people that I quit nursing, I learned that so many other women had similar stories. It wasn’t until I opened up about what I was feeling and thinking did I begin to feel less alone in all of this and, therefore, could move forward and feel better and more confident in my choices. We need to support each other without judgment and respect each other’s choices.
Some times I wish I knew the nitty gritty details of other's emergency C sections so I could have been more prepared mentally for what was to come. I like to be in the know and I try to be honest and transparent with others if they ask. When I meet someone, and they ask about my labor and delivery, I ask them if they want the PG version or the real deal. Most want the latter, and I hope in some way, by sharing my story, I can help someone out there feel less alone in what they might be going through. I am where I am today because of the amazing community around me who picked me up when I was a puddle of tears on the ground this last year, pretty much always, and I want to be that for others if I can be.
There is compassion and empathy in the truth. And I think we all want and need the truth.
Now, let’s talk about photography.
Before being a mother myself, I truly did not understand how hard it was to document one’s own motherhood, parenthood, and family life, so I set the bar high for the images I liked and didn’t. I thought that in your own home, you have access to your family 24/7, so show me something unique and interesting in a way I haven’t seen before. Boy was it a wakeup call when I had a child of my own and realized the challenges of being mom and photographer at the same time (also, can I please have an extra 5 hands affixed to my body and maybe 100 more hours in the day so I can take care of things).
Motherhood looks different for everyone because it is different. We all bring our own unique context to the images we create, and we all use the camera in different ways as storytellers.
I was surprised by how much I didn’t photograph my son, to be honest. I don’t think I knew just how much work being a mother was, and my role as a mother had to come before my role as a photographer. That’s just how things were going to be from now on…. And to be honest, after hours of baby care, nursing, pumping, chores, sneaking in a meal and showering (maybe) I often did not have the bandwidth to pick up my camera and be creative. As he has gotten older and more independent, I am starting to document his life more, even attempting to be creative with my image-making, but it is a daily challenge.
Like with my project about my parents, it is often the most challenging when you are photographing “what’s in your backyard.”
The most familiar can often be the most boring, so it can, in turn, be the best challenge you can give yourself to make interesting images of your children and your experience.
Maybe the bottles of milk happen to create a beautiful beam of light between them while sitting idle on the countertop, or maybe you explore the world from the perspective of your baby or family dog, in my case, to change things up a bit. Or maybe you give yourself a pass and just keep the camera nearby for those moments of inspiration but be ok with things if you don’t feel or see those for days, weeks or months.
An important part of storytelling in photography is figuring out how to get the audience to care about what you are showing them. Creating empathy in your work allows people to find common ground or connect with the images even if they don’t directly relate to motherhood. Maybe that’s searching for universal themes within motherhood like family relationships, love, frustration, hope, identity, etc.
Mothers will always understand mothers, though. So, let’s create recognition and honor the fellow talented photographers going through this shared experience.
Sometimes I think society would be more willing to talk about motherhood if they were real about how it’s represented. IG is flooded with beautiful images, and the same goes with pregnancy, and I think the majority of the content is not what I would call “real life.”
Maybe no one wants to see the images of my bloated face, or the dreadlock that formed in my hair after 5 days in the hospital, or the acne my son had all over his face the moment he entered this world…. but that’s reality, and maybe if we are more open and public about it, we can normalize the entire motherhood experience.