I went back for my second day this week. There are 15 moms in the unit and I can only get to 2 or 3 in one session, so I have some catching up to do. This mom was just having a good time playing with her 18 month old son before his nap time and I managed to stand up on a chair to take this image. It makes me smile.
Read MoreMoms and Babies
First Day Back
I spent the few hours with two young women: one with her four-week old daughter and the other 37 weeks pregnant. I felt a little rusty, remembering how to work in the small spaces where each mother and baby pair live.
I know I’ve had a good time when I lose track of it, which is what I did. It felt right being around young mothers – one making a baby and the other breast-feeding hers. Benefits of breast-feeding are trickling down to offenders from the efforts made by public health nurses and midwives involved in applying this knowledge to incarcerated mothers. These days, a nurse-midwife is giving prenatal care within the prison clinic. Only two years ago, the pregnant women were driven to the midwifery setting in Lakewood.
Back to the Prison Nursery
Yesterday, I returned to the prison nursery for the first time in two and a half years. I needed the break, having been a regular volunteer there from 2003-2012, even serving on committees and focus groups, and attending distant workshops. This time around, I promised myself just to enjoy the photography, the moms, and their sweet offspring. Part of the deal is to serve as a witness to the struggles and growth of incarcerated mothers raising their babies in a difficult situation.
Not much seems to have changed since my last time there in 2012. But, the outside grassy areas are now abundantly cultivated into useful gardens, giving a sense of real purpose to the work done by some of the inmates. The plantings, including colorful flowers, liven up the dreary blue-grey barracks that serve to house several hundred minimum-security offenders. Otherwise, the sign on the entryway to the J Unit where the prison nursery is housed remains unchanged with the one misplaced adjective in an otherwise list of five nouns seeking to inspire those who cross the threshold: Reliable, Respect, Trust, Integrity, Honesty, Loyalty.
Probably the most poignant thing that happened yesterday was an unexpected encounter with an inmate that I knew from 2008. We both took a second look and drew closer together in surprise. Autumn had the same wide, warm smile that I remembered. One of her jobs was as a caregiver for some of the babies and toddlers. Autumn told me she is getting out on work release in August. Then she said, “I wish I could give you a big hug!” I smiled back, “Me too.” It brought back the memory of something she said in seven years ago that I wrote down: “And in prison, we don’t get to love. We don’t get to hug. We don’t get to love. But with the babies, we have this infant that has no mean intentions towards you at all… ever. Doesn’t even know what being mean means. And they love you and it’s unconditional.”
As we parted company - she going off to a job and me going off to photograph moms - Autumn and I exchanged a warm nod, “Well, consider yourself hugged, ok?” It is so hard to imagine spending years in confinement where human touch is not allowed. I think I would wither up.
School is out!
I needed a boost today after hearing about another terrifying earthquake in Nepal. Earlier on Facebook, I posted images of animals I saw in Nepal's Langtang Valley and Kathmandu. The trauma and devastation happening in Nepal makes me feel very somber and wanting to do something more than think about the people there. Donating money is about all I can do and that feels so small. So, while looking through my past work in Haiti, I came across these images of schoolchildren - and needed to call attention to something positive.