In an age where social media and technology provide us with constant opportunities to take and retake photos, add filters, edit flaws and present an often unrealistic image of ourselves and our lives as mothers, we set out to create a series of real-life motherhood moments – without the filters, without the edits, but with all the beauty.
This is Roberta.
In her words:
I married my husband and was blessed to become the stepmother to two amazing boys three years ago, ages 7 and 11. However, we wanted to have a child of our own, and so we underwent IVF to have our daughter, Aava. I have (as does most of my family) Fragile X, which is a genetic disorder that affects the X chromosome and can produce autistic-like characteristics in people. As a result, my egg supply was very low, was of very low quality and most carried the defective gene. After many tests, the likelihood of being able to conceive my own child, with my own eggs, was estimated to be 1%. My sister, Marika, is the only female in my family who does not carry the defective gene. At age 20, my sister underwent the process of donating her eggs so that I could have a child of my own. After several attempts, we finally became pregnant in September of 2014 and had our daughter in May of 2015. Without my sister, my family would never have been able to be. Words cannot express my gratitude towards her for doing this for me.