A worried Sheng Hailin watches over her daughter Huihui during a hospital stay in Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
In 2009, 59-year-old retired doctor Sheng Hailin became part of the shīdú population—a Chinese term (literally "loss of only") identifying parents who have lost their only child. Her daughter, Tingting, died from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning alongside Tingting’s husband shortly after their 2008 marriage. In Chinese society, the loss of an only child carries profound socioeconomic and cultural implications; children are traditionally the primary source of elder care and the sole means of continuing the family lineage. Estimates from the China Development Brief and population experts suggest that over one million families in China have lost their only children, a demographic consequence of the One-Child Policy. Seeking to “free myself from loneliness,” Sheng Hailin underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) therapy and on May 25, 2010, at the age of 60, Sheng Hailin gave birth to fraternal twins, Zhizhi and Huihui, following a grueling IVF process that pushed her body to its physical limits.
For 15 years, the photographer has documented this family, offering a portrait that is both extraordinary and mundane, but always filled with enduring love. To fund her daughters' development and education, Sheng Hailin came out of retirement, travelling across China to give health lectures, and finding a second career as a live-streamer with 940,000 followers. After her husband Wu Jingzhou's stroke in early 2016 and his subsequent death in 2022, the burden of care for her daughters fell solely on Sheng Hailin. Now 75, her story continues to unfold as a testament to the complex realities of love, death, child raising, and aging in modern China.
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