May 2021
Mandy
Clark
,
BSN, RNC-OB
Labor & Delivery
Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center
Corvallis
,
OR
United States
The next few hours Mandy photographed every moment, hug, kiss,and angle these parents asked her to take. She supported them in their grief and captured the last few hours of life with this newborn surrounded by family.
When you think of labor and delivery nurses, the images that come to mind are crying babies, smiling new parents, and tears of joy. But there is another side of labor and delivery that is less shared or talked about. Silent births, broken only by the tears of parents experiencing the worst kind of grief imaginable, losing their baby. It comes naturally for us to be able to share in our patient’s joy and happiness. But it takes someone truly special to be able to care for and support our patient population through this raw and emotional time, balancing the physical and hemodynamic care of the mother, the emotional care of the mother and her partner, and postmortem care of their newborn. On one recent occasion, Mandy found herself in one such situation, only this time, while we knew death was imminent, the parents still had a few precious hours to hold and love their living, breathing child. Calls were made in the middle of the night to find a Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photographer so as to capture a few photos of this family before their baby passed away, and none would come in. Mandy advocated for the patient and asked to be allowed to grab her personal camera in order to help these parents capture these few fleeting moments they had. The next few hours Mandy photographed every moment, hug, kiss,and angle these parents asked her to take. She supported them in their grief and captured the last few hours of life with this newborn surrounded by family. Once the baby passed, Mandy continued to offer support and care until the end of her shift. These parents now have over 300 photos of their child to cherish because of Mandy advocating for them. (Mandy has done a photography project for our floor before. She had a photo consent form already saved from that project that was created by Samaritan, so that consent was used prior to any photographs being taken).