Opinions please....................

I saw an article in the newspaper about a woman who has put her grief to a very good use. In response to having lost a baby at birth, she now offers to take pictures of other babies that die at birth in order that the parents may have a visual reminder of their little loved ones.

I know there are some of you that read my posts regularly that have lost babies before full gestation, and I am wondering if you think having had this option would have helped you in your grieving process?

I lost a baby at four and a half months gestation. I can still remember the fear and uncertainty I felt as I drove to my doctor's office. The baby broke loose from my womb just as I stepped off the elevator, about two feet from the safty and security of my doctor. The next twenty minutes or so is mostly a blur. I remember crying, and I remember asking if they could tell if the baby was a boy or a girl, and if I could see him (I "knew" the child was a boy in my heart). The only answer I got was that I had indeed aborted but everything was going to be okay. I was transfered to the hospital for a D&C and how they disposed of my baby I never had the courage to ask.

I will be forever grateful for a phone call I got the following week. It was from one of the nurses at the doctor's office calling to tell me that they had been able to determine that my baby was indeed a male child. Now I could at least name the little one I would never be able to hold in my arms, and this was indeed a blessing.

This morning I ask myself the question, would I have wanted a picture of baby Drew at four and a half months gestation? Looking at those books on birth, babies don't look like much at that stage of development, and if he had been deceased for several days before coming out as the doctor speculated, would this have made a difference?
I honestly don't know. At what point would you want to have a picture of a life that was lost? Would you want any physical reminder you could get, or would the child have to be at a certain stage of development? At was stage do you think the medical community would be comfortable allowing photos of stillborns?

I think that often it is more "permissible" in society to grieve for a full term loss than for an earlier one. From the point that I knew I was pregnant, the experience was real for me, but not so much for those around me. Due to a variety of circumstances there were only about five other people that even knew I was pregnant. In some ways this made it more difficult to mourn, (I didn't see any sense in sharing the news after the fact), but in some ways it was better because I didn't have to explain things to every single person I knew. I think I might know the answer from those of you that have lost babies, but for those of you that have not had this experience, do you think it would be harder to loose a full term baby more than a baby not fully developed?

I find it interesting that a single item can take me back to a time and place that I thought I had moved on from. I moved through it, but I think that reminders such as the newspaper article will always trigger the memories and the grief. Softer maybe, but still there, and I think that is perfectly okay, and the way that it should be. What do you think?