Alexa Mazzarello
New Belly
Photography, digital
2021
"Many pregnancy-related terms make it sound as if the pregnant person could have chosen a different path. When you are accused of 'failure to progress,' it’s hard not to feel like you’ve somehow failed the assignment." - Please Don’t Call My Cervix Incompetent by Rachel E. Gross for The Atlantic
This work is part of a larger body of work titled Failure to Progress.
“Failure to Progress” is the note that was written on my medical file as the reason I needed an emergency Cesarean section on May 31, 2021. In the height of the second wave of Covid-19 I went into labour and laboured alone for several hours in a small hospital room, before being admitted to a delivery room where my husband could finally join me. 18 hours of labour later, when my cervix “failed” to dilate to 10cm I was told my only option was a C-section. My partner would not be allowed in the operating room for the birth because I had spiked a fever. Devastated and scared, I signed the papers and Henry was born.
I immediately begin making photographs after Henry’s birth. It helped me process the trauma of his birth and the impact of those three little words – failure to progress. Did I fail? Did my cervix fail? Am I a failure? Making this work is an effort to reshape and reclaim my birth experience and process the negative impact this medical terminology had on my postpartum reality; a reality that has been intense filled with physical pain, emotional exhaustion, sadness, frustration, rage, grief, and depression…all mixed with intoxicating love and ecstasy.
Alexa Mazzarello is a Canadian, lens-based artist and photographer specializing in portrait, documentary, and editorial photography. With a background in gender equality and health, my work is primarily concerned with centering the voices and stories of women. Most recently, as a new mother, my work is exploring the balancing act of the artist-mother identity.
I am based on the traditional territory and unceeded land of the Anishinaabe Algonquin People, currently known as Ottawa, Canada.
