Months ago a friend reached out to ask that I consider becoming a volunteer with Now I Lay me Down to Sleep. I’ve debated for years whether I could provide this service and now that my sons are a little older I have decided it’s time. Life is fragile and life is fleeting…for some, much more so than others. Though the loss of a newborn baby is the most devastating pain a parent will ever walk through, even worse is when there is no record of that child’s existence as the family walks their journey of grief. I have decided to become a volunteer with NILMDTS to provide families with an affirmation that their baby existed and was loved.
NILMDTS exists to introduce remembrance photography to parents suffering the loss of a baby with the free gift of professional portraiture. They believe the portraits will serve as an important step in the family’s healing process by honoring their child’s legacy. They provide services to family’s whose babies do not leave the hospital after the birth.
I truly cannot imagine walking this journey. Unfortunately, I know families who have and they say they are forever changed in ways few people understand. As much as we’d all like to pretend there is no need for such services, I have learned that approximately 26,000 babies in the US are still born every year. Another 11,300 babies in the US die annually on the day they are born. So, yes there is a need for professionals to provide the only photographic evidence families will have for the baby they have loved and lost. This is why I am now a volunteer with NILMDTS and am one of the photographers who may be called upon to provide free portrait services at Carroll Hospital for babies who will not leave the hospital. I want to make my client base aware so should the unspeakable happen to someone they love, they are aware I may be in a position to provide newborn portraits of their tiny one. These sessions will always be private and never appear on-line in any form via my portrait studio.
