At 23 weeks, Natasha went into labour, and five days later gave birth to Rikley in the fall of 2016. Yana was there to offer their help. Natasha and her husband Paul didn’t need YANA’s help because this part of their story, sadly, ended very quickly. Rikley had 8 heart attacks in his 7 1/2 hours of life, and Natasha and Paul had to say goodbye to their first son the same day he was born.

I started documenting sickness when it was for someone really close to me, as a way for the family and child to be able to look back and process their journey. I have always wondered why, in society, we just photograph the easy joy? Isn’t it what we experience and how we walk when we are “in the trenches” that is a substantial part of who we are and where we find our growth? So I hoped the photos would be a gift – one that would help them celebrate their hardship in a different way and allow them to later look back and realize how much they travelled through.