I Was There Too is a series of conversations I am having with families and photographers documenting and normalizing life with medical complexities. In this chat I’m talking with Kate Nguy, whose family I photographed 13 times over six years. Throughout that time they went from a couple who were pregnant with their first daughter after years of fertility challenges to a family of five.
Meet Kate and her crew.
Over the course of our thirteen photography sessions the Nguy’s moved houses, experienced NICU life, started businesses, and said goodbye to pets all while raising three humans. This video is the story of the Nguy family.
As you can see in the slideshow there have been so many changes since I met Kate. One of the many things we talked about during our chat was Kate’s experience in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with her second daughter. In our conversation she says, “The photo of the front desk with the NICU sign. That one brings me to tears every time because it brings me back to every morning when I had to walk through those doors. It’s not even the pictures of Quinn, it’s the pictures of the story I lived while I was [in the NICU].”
Kate gets my photography!
In our recent conversation, which you can watch below, we talk about documenting experiences through photography but also through journaling and movement. We are all on a journey and maybe Kate or I have an idea for how you can process some of your story.
In this conversation..
2:00 Documenting infertility and high risk pregnancies
7:30 NICU? Get the camera!
12:00 Exist in photos
13:30 Who are the pictures really for?
15:30 Watching the story (and chaos) unfold
19:30 Photo books for each kid
22:00 What’s next with Kate
23:30 Female superpowers
25:00 My own pregnancy loss
29:30 Kate’s challenge to women
The final ten minutes of the video is all about what’s next for Kate and she shared so many exciting new things she is doing to support women in finding themselves in their stories. Even in our short conversation I learned so much from Kate about Women’s Health.
Check out Kate’s new website, Shee Revival, and follow her on Instagram.
And here’s a little throwback to an earlier blog about their family…