Meet Kherrington Faith...

Well, I have been having a dilemma for about the last 3 weeks or so. I have been wanting to share pictures of Kherrington for many reasons, and not wanting to share them for other VALID reasons.

Kherrington spent 3 days dead in utero. As a result, she didn't look quite the way they said she would. The doctors said that she would look like a sleeping baby except her lips and fingernails would be blue. This was FAR from the case, and I have yet to see pictures of any still born baby with blue lips. Most still borns, Kheri included, have DEEP red lips, and they are a tell tale sign to those of us who have seen it before. Kheri's lips looked almost like someone gave her crimson red lip stick. Also, her skin and hair were damaged, and we were told not to unwrap her.

We loved her the way she was. She was beautiful to me, too beautiful for earth. But I have been hesitant on displaying her photo due to the graphic nature of the pictures, until now. An old friend of mine, from "back home" in Ontario, wrote me an e-mail last week. She is currently 35 weeks pregnant, and had some professional pregnancy photos taken. During her session she found out that the photographer is a member of "Now I lay me down to sleep" . This is an organization consisting of professional photographers that volunteer their time and resources to go to hospitals and photograph still born or sick/dying babies. They also take pictures and touch them up. There is also another website, consisting of forums and other resources. I did some further research and discovered that there are two photographers in our province, one right in Fredericton! Needless to say, I am going to be passing this information on to my social worker. I can't believe that the hospital is not aware that this organization exists. I hope that other Moms and Dads that are in this unfortunate situation in the future, are able to benefit from my discovery.

I contacted the photographer, and sent her some pictures. She e-mailed me back a few hours later with this first "touched up" picture of our angel. She is going to touch up most of the pictures we had taken. It is an amazing gift, and we still have the originals. I am not going to publish ANY of these on Facebook, at least not yet. I know there is still a "stigma" around pictures of dead babies, but on this blog, I feel comfortable.

So, with that, let me introduce to you, Kherrington Faith Gavel.



An angel who grew her wings on February 3, 2010, and we got to say hello and goodbye to on February 6, 2010(6 pounds, 13 ounces).