A story about Juno, memory, and the baby who never came home.
Around 1.9 million babies are stillborn worldwide every year. Yet perinatal grief remains something we rarely talk about openly.
Through a series of photographs by French photographer Lisolablu, Laetitia opens up about the loss of her son Juno, whose heart stopped at 31 weeks of pregnancy.
Lisolablu’s work focuses on women, motherhood and the many ways women experience and inhabit their bodies. She makes space for every kind of motherhood, including the mothers who didn’t get to leave the clinic with their baby alive. Her photographs have a soft, intimate quality that feels particularly right for this story.
These photographs are not only about loss. They are about the body, memory, motherhood and the traces a baby can leave behind, even when their life is heartbreakingly short.
At the centre of the series is a plaster cast of Juno in his mother’s belly, a physical reminder of the baby she carried, felt move, imagined and loved.
Losing a baby late in pregnancy is not just losing the future we had imagined.
For almost 8 months, my body carried Juno. I felt him move, learned his rhythms. I imagined the life we would build together.
My pregnancy had been easy and uneventful. Juno was a healthy baby. No abnormality, no disease, nothing to suggest that anything was wrong. And then, suddenly, his heart stopped without warning due to a placental infarction.
I gave birth to his body, just as any mother gives birth. We held him, we said goodbye, and walked out of the clinic with our arms empty.
Perinatal loss is not only an emotional loss. It is physical. It is traumatic. The body remembers. The mind remembers. And the absence becomes part of everyday life.
Among these photographs is a plaster cast of my son in my belly, a physical trace of the little person who was there, who was loved, and who will always be with us.
We need to make more space for these stories. For the babies. For the parents. For the grief that does not simply disappear.
Photography: @lisolablu – https://lisolablu.my.canva.site/
Featuring: @little___voice
Cast: @rockaroundmyneckbijoux – Dress: @blowupvintage
