Melle

Melle, an African-American single mother, gave birth to her two first children in the hospital.

She decided to deliver her third child at home in order to prevent her small family from being split up and to protect it from the control of social services. Now her choice is taking on aspects of a social struggle, pitting her strong will against a slew of tremendous financial, logistic and medical obstacles.

Melle doesn’t even have time to worry about questions of home birth. As she herself says: “I have almost started to put the birth behind me. I need to be able to get up from the birth and tend to all of this.”