By Hannah Schenker
Photographer Ivette Ivens, whose work you may have already seen on our website with her project Breastfeeding Goddesses, has once again captured the grace and beauty of a breastfeeding mother. This time, she photographed mother-of-two and burns survivor Schamica “Mimi” Stevenson, breastfeeding her baby boy, Josiah.
Ivette shared this image on her Facebook page, along with these words which couldn’t be more true:
Mother of two. Fire survivor. Warrior. Breastfeeder.
The fire inside burned stronger than her desire to succumb to the names, walls and judgements brought against her. Overcoming obstacles was a chapter in her childhood. Defying the odds became her story.
Stevenson first gained attention after sharing some photos and her story on the Facebook page Black Women Do Breastfeed. Her story is truly remarkable: she survived a house fire when just two years old, a fire that claimed the life of her baby brother. After a lifetime of skin grafts and surgeries, she still was able to get pregnant and had a daughter 14 years ago, as she told the Huffington Post, and more recently had baby Josiah on 4 March this year.
As she says in her post, “I am just so blessed that my breasts didn’t get any damage to them and I am able to nurse my little Prince.”
