‘Fragility, Love, Resilience, Devotion.

I feel this as intensely in my core now, today, as I did then 27 years ago.

Isadora was born 16 weeks early, too frail to hold. My only connection with her was devotedly expressing milk from my exhausted body; anxiously watching her delicately teetering on the edge of life behind a wall of medical equipment. Tiny, fragile but alive. I was in the dark, hurtling somewhere, I don’t know where, but steeply learning.

Sadly many ‘extreme premmies’ don’t make it. Their will to survive is innate, a mother’s will to keep them alive is instinctive, and NICU’s* devotion is beyond clinical. These forces working together transcend the physical.

110 days slowed me down, made me patient, and helped me surrender to the story. Reliving the journey of her hospitalisation by making one delicate porcelain vessel each day is a ritualistic tribute to that time. Journalling the feelings that arose now and the memories of then. The test and endurance of this journey has culminated in the work here, communicating viscerally through repetition and the fragility of the materials.

This piece was born in gratitude to all those who helped Isadora survive, and held me safely during the process. Thank you to NICU, The Royal Women’s Hospital Melbourne.’

Jo Lauritz

Photography: Narelle Wilson