Precious pictures: Photographer, parents share impact of images that preserve memories after death takes baby

When the joy of birth turns to the sorrow of death, Kristin Gallatin is among the angels who help parents preserve the comforting memories of their child's ephemeral life.

Gallatin is the Columbus, Ga., area coordinator for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, a nonprofit organization based in Centennial, Colo., that gives the gift of remembrance photography to parents suffering the loss of a stillborn or a newborn. Since its founding 10 years ago, nearly 2,000 photographers, representing every American state and 40 countries around the world, have provided this free service to more than 30,000 families.

One of those families is Alicia and Josh Orlich of Fortson. Along with Kristin, they agreed to share their story so more parents will know about this blessing during their time of grief and more photographers might volunteer to produce the opportunity.

Ultrasound

Alicia, 31, is a 2002 graduate of Harris County High School. She works part time as a registered nurse at St. Francis Hospital. Josh, 33, is a 2000 graduate of Columbus High School. He works as an accountant at Aflac. They already had a daughter, Tegan, now 3, when they learned in February 2014 that Alicia was pregnant with twins.

At the 12th-week ultrasound, they were told the twins were boys. The doctor said Baby A had a slight enlargement in the bladder area. It looked like a cyst, the doctor said, and referred Alicia to a specialist for another ultrasound.

"We were a little concerned but didn't think it was anything serious from the way he talked about it," she wrote in her blog.

So, safely through the first trimester, Alicia and Josh decided on names for the twins and announced Baby A would be Adam and Baby B would be Austin.

Alicia and Josh went to the appointment for the follow-up ultrasound "expecting to hear it would be all okay and that it was a cyst that would be absorbed during the pregnancy," she wrote.

Instead, the ultrasound showed Adam's bladder was completely blocked.

"It took our breath away," Alicia wrote.

Adam was diagnosed with a lower urinary tract obstruction (also called LUTO or keyhole bladder), which prevents excretion of waste. That meant Adam wouldn't have enough amniotic fluid for his lungs and kidneys to develop normally.

But there was hope. Because the condition was discovered early enough, a shunt could be inserted to allow Adam's bladder to empty for the rest of the pregnancy. Unfortunately, carrying twins meant it would be hard to find a doctor willing to risk a surgery that could harm the other baby.

Josh, however, found a hospital in Miami that agreed to examine Alicia. Two weeks later, following a two-hour ultrasound, two surgeons explained that Adam's position behind Austin would make it impossible to insert the shunt without breaking Austin's amniotic sac.

"I tried to keep listening but for me this was the breaking point, when the tears couldn't be stopped, and I had nowhere else to put my hope in helping Adam," Alicia wrote. "Laying there watching his heart beating and feeling completely helpless while they basically said he would never come home with us."

The doctors said Adam could survive the pregnancy but would struggle to breathe on his own after birth. The only alternative they offered was "selective reduction," meaning Adam could be aborted.

"It broke my heart to even hear the words and see first hand how easy they made it sound to take his life," Alicia wrote.

Alicia and Josh instead chose to savor as much of Adam's life as they could.

"This is the first time it would be impossible for me to make it without my hope being in Christ and what His word says about who He is and who I am called to be through Him," Alicia wrote. "So every day I grieve over what is expected to come, I pray for him and any time I can have with him, and I thank God for choosing and trusting me to be their Mommy."

Calling

Kristin, 41, is a 1993 graduate of Harris County High School. As a professional photographer specializing in children from birth to school age, she was among the ones Tracy Young, the NILMDTS coordinator in Auburn, contacted through an Internet search in 2010, when Columbus didn't have a photographer in the NILMDTS network.

That summer, Kristin agreed to attend a meeting to hear about the program. A family who benefited from the service gave their testimony and brought the photos they received to show the impact.

As she left the meeting, Kristin told herself, "OK, you've got to do it. They need this in your area, and if I have the means to do it and the talent to do it, then I knew that's what I was called to do."

Kristin filled out the online application that night and answered her first call a few months later. Now, she is the area coordinator. She and another photographer, Holly Tye, serve NILMDTS in Columbus. Since she started five years ago, Kristin and Holly have done approximately 60 sessions each.

They need more photographers to better cover the area, Kristin said. Although they can go weeks without a NILMDTS call, she recalled a 17-day period when they did nine sessions.

"If we had two to three more to volunteer, it just makes the workload easier when we could call others to divide it," she said. "Right now, there's basically two of us that carry the load and we have the one that comes over once a month over from Auburn."

All NILMDTS photographs are done in black-and-white.

"A lot of times," Kristin explained, "when the babies have already passed, the skin tones and things like that, if we gave them to them in color, it just would not be healing."

NILMDTS gives the families an account on a secure, password-protected website to view the photos. The families have "complete, total rights to their images," Kristin said. "They're the only ones that have access to that, unless they decide to forward that email and share it with someone else."

Kristin receives NILMDTS calls from medical personnel or directly from the families.

"We've got a relationship now with the hospitals where they will contact us to let us know that they have someone that has a baby that isn't expected to live or has already passed in utero," Kristin said.

Some sessions are scheduled in advance; others are more of an emergency.

"Most, you find out last minute," Kristin said.

NILMDTS has a policy that won't allow photographs of babies born from pregnancies of less than 25 weeks.

"We don't want the parents to get pictures back and they do more harm than good," Kristin explained. "We want them to be able to heal from seeing pictures and not something that's going to hurt them in the long run."

When she arrives at the hospital, sometimes the baby already has died, and sometimes the baby dies after the session -- or even during it.

"There are times when we've gone in and taken pictures and the NICU will go ahead and de-escalate care while we're there and go ahead and unhook everything," Kristin said.

She must be prepared for all sorts of family dynamics.

"Everyone reacts differently," Kristin said. "There are some that are solemn and have no emotions whatsoever when you go in. Then you have some that just found out and they are a total wreck. We basically just try to slide in. I'll introduce myself, explain to them that the services are free, explain to them that it will take about four weeks to get them back. But I try to do everything as quickly as possible and head out."

So how does Kristin keep her emotions steady enough in that environment to continue taking quality photographs?

"The camera is a good shield," she said. " You know you have something that you've got to accomplish, and you go in and get what you can and then get out of the family's way so that they can have their time."

Her strong faith boosts her ability.

"I am a Christian, and I do believe that these babies definitely go to Heaven," she said. "I believe that if their parents are Christians and believe in Christ and have Him in their hearts, I do believe that they'll be reunited with their babies one day."

That's why Kristin continues to answer those desperate calls.

"I believe that, with these pictures, there's a lot of healing that can take place by having them," she said. "It's pictures that they can look back through the years and remember what their toes and fingers looked like, what their little profile looked like, things that if they didn't have these pictures they would never know or never remember."

Although a few parents have called back to cancel a session after giving it further thought, Kristin said, she insists she never has regretted a session, nor has she heard parents ask her to stop in the middle of a session or regret they invited her after seeing the photos.

"We do our best to get in and capture the moments for them and then get out of their way so that they have time to grieve," Kristin. "We don't ever want it to be about us or about the organization. We want them to have these pictures, but at the same time, we go in under the radar, get what we need and we leave."

Birth

And that's how Kristin performed the service after Adam and Austin were born premature, at 31 weeks, on Aug. 14, 2014.

"Kristin was there in the room, but she was just merely present and doing her thing," Josh said, then turned to Kristin and continued. "Honestly, half the time I didn't remember you were there. You were very gracious, very aware, good situational awareness of what's going on and sensitive and also capturing all the moments as well. That's a hard line to balance, and we were really appreciative of it."

For support after being told about Adam's fate, Alicia read "I Will Carry You" by Angie Smith, who wrote about her daughter's 2½ hours of life despite being advised to terminate the pregnancy. The book mentions NILMDTS, and Alicia was intrigued with the idea.

Kristin knew Alicia from growing up as family friends at Maranatha Baptist Church. So when she heard about the complications of Alicia's pregnancy, she told Alicia's sister she would be honored to provide the NILMDTS service if Alicia and Josh requested it.

Despite those connections, Alicia still had doubt.

"He didn't have any amniotic fluid in his sac, and I knew from that there could be abnormalities," she said. "We didn't know exactly what he was going to look like from not having that fluid to grow in. So that was kind of a little bit of 'maybe I don't want to have pictures if it's not something you don't necessarily want to see.' But I knew I wanted to have her there just in case."

So when Alicia went into labor, Kristin was among the folks she alerted. Around 3 a.m., Alicia delivered via C-section, and Kristin was in the operating room.

Austin was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit, where he lived for one month before he was healthy enough to be taken home. Adam lived for about one hour in his parents' arms.

"Pregnancy and the birth of a child is totally, totally just a gift," Josh said. "So many things have to fall in place. That hour, we're just very appreciative for it, very thankful for it, because a lot of people don't even have that."

Now, 16 months later, Alicia and Josh continue to cherish those photographs.

"I don't know if there's an exact way to describe it, but it's helped in the healing process," Alicia said. "It just helps make it feel real, like he was real, to be able to look back and see him. I don't think I would feel that way if we didn't have the pictures."

"There's a tendency, at least for me personally, to minimize it and kind of move on from it," Josh said. "The pictures just kind of help me, more or less, embrace that, rather than try to move on from it quickly."

The photos also will help the parents tell their children about their deceased brother. A stone marker alongside two blue hydrangeas in their yard memorializes Adam. Eventually, Josh said, their children will ask questions about Adam, and they will have more than a marker to have a loving conversation.

Alicia and Josh now have a second son, Evan, born Sept. 11 this year. Evan came into the world with his own complications. Blockage in his lungs had to be suctioned multiple times. But after spending his first night receiving oxygen, Evan was in Alicia's room the next day without problems.

"Evan means the Lord is gracious and we felt like it was perfect for what we had just gone through with our twins," Alicia wrote in the blog. "Now we have already seen in his own precious life how true that is and we are so grateful that God has given us this sweet boy to raise."

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow him on Twitter @MarkRiceLE.

ABOUT NILMDTS

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep was founded in April 2005, two months after Cheryl and Mike Haggard of Colorado called photographer Sandy Puc to photograph them with their newborn son, Maddux, after he died at 6 days old.

NILMDTS accepts donations to help pay for its expenses and the training of the photographers. Brochures are printed in English and Spanish.

To request this service, volunteer to provide it or to help fund it, visit www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 1:29 PM with the headline "Precious pictures: Photographer, parents share impact of images that preserve memories after death takes baby."