We Are Going Through Loss Every Month…

This is going to be something quite personal. As my partner said, "once it's online, it's out there."

So, I want to touch base on fertility.

Back when I was 17, my whole concept around my artwork was centered on life and death. I sculpted a women's body with a hand over the uterus area that you could turn around to reveal a red interior filled with small tumbling babies. I was obsessed with the idea that we don't fully realize the loss we experience every month with our periods. Though these eggs hadn't been fertilized, they still represented a possibility of life. My art teacher, Mrs. Susan Hunter, whom I admired, seemed to sense more about what I was going through, although she never addressed it directly.

I experienced the loss of an actual pregnancy. Yes, I was too young. My mother did confront me about it as she did guess at the time, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. I'm ashamed to say this wasn't the last time. The weight of these losses I think pushed heavily on me without realising at the time, and art became my place for releasing the pain—creating more, trying to forget, trying to let go.

By the time I turned 35 and was ready to have a child, I almost doubted my fertility due to the harm I had inflicted on my body over the years. Maybe I was being punished? Yes, that's what I thought. Just as I was about to give up, the pregnancy test showed positive.

And now, I am a mother of a 3-year-old.

Despite all the losses and mistakes I've made, I am still blessed with a beautiful kid (although he could be misbehaving at times…).

I am grateful to life.

AND, I still send prayers and love to those lives that are not with me today.