For your review
I personally doubt I could handle something like that. The sad thing is that couple is from our hometown. Craziness.
I fully and completely understand why someone would.
Doesn't sound like the healthiest situation. It seems like it would just reawaken grief more and more. If a loved one of yours died, would you want pictures of them right after they died? Granted, you would have other types of pictures. But, this just doesn't seem healthy.
The picture is invaluable and gives the mom something to hold onto when her baby is gone. It eases the suffering to have the picture.
One friend whose baby was stillborn was not even allowed to see the baby when it was delivered and for years and years she was so saddened by that fact.
This is really sad, and being a new parent myself, I completely undertand why these unfortunate mothers and fathers would want to have their stillborn infants' memories preserved through photography before they are lain to rest.
The photograph of a still born child or a older deceased infant/child was highly prized in the late 1800's and early 1900s. This is not new to our society.
If it provides comfort to the parents, who am I to judge if they should have such photos?
I have been in the situation.
Mom didn't want to see the baby she lost.
We carefully dressed and wrapped him in a blue blanket.
The photo's were for a few months down the road when Mom changed her mind.
Most of them do.
Being a young fella with no kids, at first glance I thought this was pretty creepy. After reading some of the posts here, I think I can understand.
I'm not sure if it would be for me, but I'm glad that it helps some people.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong but I think this might be due to the movement away from God. They think a photo is all they have or all that ever existed of that Soul. Then again, if I had a child that died shortly after birth, I'd probably like a photo myself... not much difference. A terrible loss anyway you slice it.
jw
A friend has a few photos of her full-term stillborn daughter and they give her great comfort. But she keeps them privately tucked away. I can't imagine displaying them in the living room.
There are parents who have devoted websites to their stillborn children. My wife (ever the cynical one) showed me one impressively sappy pink fluffy page with a midi file playing a melody over the top. Yikes! Seems to me that that's a little over the top.
This thread is hard to read without tearing up. I'm for whatever gives comfort. If pictures do it, then bless those who take them.
I used to help out in a support group and the horror stories of callus a-holes wondering aloud what all the fuss about 'a dead baby' made me wonder why the murder rate is not a lot higher. I had a Chiropractor tell me my daughter would have lived if I had taken her into him for a 'chiropractic adjustment' -- and to this day I am amazed I did not remove his skull from his neck.
I sat in an Emergency Room recently with a young father who held one of two twins.
The twin that the father held had been still-born.
I remember him telling me that he wanted a few minutes to hold his daughter. Because, he said, he would never have that chance.
So I completely understood when he told me that he wanted to have a picture or two of this daughter he would never know.
Thank you for making me tear up!
No, really, as a woman just days (hopefully) away from giving birth, I can completely understand the desire for pictures if something were to happen to my baby. I cherish the 3D photos I have, but I think I'd really want some of us holding her in our arms.
Having lost a baby during early pregnancy, I can assure you that I wanted nothing more than to cling to any memory I had of my baby boy. I had nothing, though. I would do this.
Oh my heavens this is the saddest thing I have read in ages, it makes me want to cry.
I guess you have to be Catholic or something. It's the open verses closed casket thing. I'm big on open caskets but I know my sister in law about had a fit when the minister at the cemetery asked that the casket with my father in law in it be opened one last time (it had been closed at the church ceremony) so that the family could say goodbye. At my father's funeral, casket opened, all were invited to go up and say goodbye and in the case of the grandchildren and children, put something in the casket. I put a rosary, the grandchildren put a family photo. just a cultural thing. I didn't throw myself in the grave or anything.