The hospital staff is clearly concerned and something is very wrong. I hear that the mother who just delivered her first child and is threatening to kill it, has been taken into isolation to be watched. I find the young girl sitting in a stark room, with her baby at her side. The attending assistant translates for me, and I ask her why she wants to kill her child. Tears run down her face, and she says that her mind isn’t capable of taking care of a baby, and her father is very upset with her for having a baby. Her mother died when she was 8 years old. We get little else from her. When her tears subside a bit, she smiles hesitantly, and looks at the baby beside her, reaching her hand out to touch the newborn girl’s hair.
Just then, I am called into the OR to photograph a particularly odd medical case, and I am torn about fulfilling my duties to the surgeon and staying near this mother. The attending assistant assures me that he will stay with her, and she will not harm the baby.
Soon I am scrubbed in and heads down with my macro lens into an ulcerated prolapse, my mind on rote as I try to figure out the difficult lighting conditions to get a good medical photo. We all get caught up in this surgery, and time flies by.
When we finally exit, we hear that the young mother has left the hospital, abandoning her baby. The nurses have the baby swaddled in blankets, and we all take turns holding her. We do our best to make her feel loved.
