The Diahann Project

Letters to My Daughter
BY MARDIA PIERRE

“Hi, my name is Solèy,” you told me.

Journey with us this Mother’s Day through the tenderness, prayer + living rhythms of our Birthlooms Storyteller, Mardia Pierre.

This Mother’s Day, we honor motherhood as an intimate call and response, a sacred dialogue between mother and child, spirit and body, survival and joy. Through Mardia’s story in .tdp, Letters to My Daughter, we are reminded that mothering can be prayer, softness, memory, creativity + the continual act of returning to ourselves with grace.

“You can trust me with your rage.”

Her story carries us through dreams, pregnancy, postpartum, artistry, mental health, community care + the sacred everyday moments that shape Black motherhood. Through letters to her daughter Solèy, Mardia offers a deeply honest reflection on love, healing, vulnerability + the beauty of creating new ways of being.

“What a beautiful privilege it is to create a new normal.”

From singing lullabies and summer walks to navigating her bipolar diagnosis, exhaustion + the shifting tides of motherhood, Mardia reminds us that Black mothers deserve softness, support, rest + the freedom to exist fully in our complexity.

“It’s okay to ebb and flow with grace and change.”

Her words honor the power of prayer not only as religion, but as ritual, imagination, art, stillness, laughter + survival. They remind us that healing is not linear + that community care can become the bridge that carries us back to ourselves.

“Like a soothing balm my community showed up…”

Today we celebrate the mothers, artists, dreamers, caregivers + community members who continue to hold one another through life’s changing tides with tenderness, honesty + love.

May we remember:

“May you embody prayer; in your steps and with your breaths.”

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at .black.birthing .tdp +

Siraad: A Pivot to the Awakening
BY LANISHA HARRISON

“I remember spending years envisioning the day I’d become a mother…”

Journey with us this Mother’s Day through the awakening, unraveling + rebirth of our Birthlooms Storyteller, Lanisha Harrison.

This Mother’s Day, we honor motherhood as both a sacred arrival and a profound confrontation with self. Through Lanisha’s story in .tdp, Siraad: A Pivot to the Awakening, we are reminded that birth can crack us open, illuminating not only new life, but also the parts of ourselves still longing to be held, healed + understood.

“Parenting him means re-parenting me.”

Her story carries us through unexpected pregnancy, the realities of postpartum transformation, the loneliness that can exist even within partnership + the sacred work of facing inherited wounds while choosing something different for our children.

“I want to be the difference.”

From the cold operating room at Boston Medical Center to the quiet grief of postpartum disconnection, Lanisha’s words speak honestly about the emotional complexities many mothers carry in silence. Yet even amid exhaustion, fear + uncertainty, she continually chooses light.

“I can give him what I didn’t have.
Not perfection, but presence.”

Through Siraad, meaning Light, Lanisha begins a journey of awakening, one rooted in truth-telling, community care, self-reflection + the courage to no longer carry everything alone. Her story reminds us that healing is not linear, and motherhood often asks us to meet the younger versions of ourselves with tenderness for the very first time.

“There’s no running anymore.
No numbing, no hiding, only truth.”

Today we celebrate the mothers navigating postpartum shifts, inner child healing, partnership, identity + the sacred tension of becoming while raising new life.

May we remember:

“The first step of change is knowing.”

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at .black.birthing .tdp +

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Di Cada Pagina De Nha Storia / From the Pages of My Story
BY SORAYA DOSSANTOS

“Nha vida é ka simplismenti un storia.
Nha vida é un transformason de alma, spiritu y vida.

My life is not simply a story. My life is a transformation of soul, spirit, and life.”

Journey with us this Mother’s Day through the sacred passages, ancestral memory + spiritual rebirth of our Birthlooms Storyteller, Soraya DosSantos.

This Mother’s Day, we honor motherhood not only as physical birth, but as communion, destiny, remembrance + sacred continuation. Through Soraya’s story, Di Cada Pagina De Nha Storia / From the Pages of My Story in .tdp, we are reminded that motherhood lives beyond the physical body, carried through spirit, lineage, community + generations of women who mother us into being.

“My life is not only mine, it is ours.”

Her story carries us through loss, survival, divine separation, rebirth + the profound ways women + community hold one another through life’s incomplete passages. Soraya reminds us that motherhood can exist through grandmothers, aunties, sisters, ancestors + every hand summoned to nurture, protect + sustain life.

“I have never felt the absence of my mother and my twin.
They guide me in all ways.”

From Cabo Verde to Boston, from spirit to flesh, from grief to sacred purpose, Soraya’s words honor the women who carried her when her mother no longer could, and the sacred responsibility of continuing her lineage through her own children, Anzala Naima + Nile Faith.

“Motherhood was the initiation that allowed me to bring into completion what my mother wasn’t able to.”

Today we celebrate the mothers, grandmothers, tias, sisters, ancestors + chosen community whose love transcends physical presence + continues to shape our lives across generations.

May we remember:

“Birth is a sacred journey to honor and be in gratitude for.”

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at .black.birthing .tdp +

Bloom Often Comes From The Most Unlikely Soil
BY SABRINA CORREIA

“Have you ever had to walk through the world with a smile while carrying the weight of a reality that felt too heavy to name out loud?”

Journey with us this Mother’s Day through the grief, grace + blooming of our Birthlooms Storyteller, Sabrina Correia.

This Mother’s Day, we honor the mothers whose journeys to parenthood were layered with silence, uncertainty, resilience + radical hope. Through Sabrina’s story in .tdp, Bloom Often Comes From The Most Unlikely Soil, we are reminded that Black motherhood is not only birth, but becoming, healing, reclaiming + trusting ourselves through the unknown.

“My miracle baby, Veronica, my answered prayer, my living proof that joy and pain can co-exist…”

Her story carries us through the quiet grief of fibroids, endometriosis + infertility, through inherited silences held across Caribbean generations, and into the sacred act of speaking truth out loud. Sabrina reminds us that our stories hold power, especially the ones we were taught to whisper.

“Silence doesn’t protect us, it isolates us.”

From doctor’s offices to ancestral conversations, from surgery to surrender, from heartbreak to the joy of holding Veronica in her arms, Sabrina’s story blooms with honesty, tenderness + liberation. It is a testimony to the truth that our bodies are not failures, and that hope can survive even the hardest seasons.

“Pain does not define you, but it refines you.”

Today we celebrate the mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunties + lineage bearers who have carried pain quietly while still making space for love, possibility + future generations to bloom differently.

May we remember:

“Your body is not your enemy.
Your body is your strength, your vessel, and your home.”

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at .black.birthing .tdp +