Heartfelt gesture: How photographers are helping families faced with the shocking loss of cherished newborns

3 months ago 23

Kylie Kittelty is used to a strong response when she tells people how she spends her precious spare time.

Kittelty, an accountant, is part of a national group of volunteer photographers who rush to the bedsides of strangers who have lost a child shortly before or after birth.

A photograph taken by Kylie Kittelty of baby Leon for his parents Sara and Angelos Sidhom, after Leon was found not to have a heartbeat in utero at nearly 36 weeks gestation.

“People say to me, ‘I could never do that’,” says Kittelty, a mother of two. “But with what I know now, I could never not do it.”

When she told her husband about her plans to join the group, who encounter families on one of the toughest days of their lives to document it for them, he questioned the emotional impact and demands of what she was taking on.

“As I’m telling him, my eyes are welling up, and I’m starting to cry,” Kittelty says. “He said to me, ‘How can you do this? You’re talking to me, and you’re crying’.

“I said, ‘I’m not crying because I’m upset. I’m crying thinking about what I could do for someone else’.”

Kittelty had hit her 40s, her kids were getting more independent, and she had developed an interest in what brings a life happiness and meaning.

She was confident that showing up for parents as they faced the shocking loss of their cherished newborns, and capturing fleeting family moments for them for free, was something she needed to, and could, do.

Once a week for the past six years, the still-practicing accountant has answered calls from the state co-ordinator of the group Heartfelt – sometimes while she is at work – and dropped everything to spend several hours with newly bereaved parents and their tiny, still, babies.

Her boss is supportive, and, coincidentally, three of Kittelty’s six or so colleagues have people close to them who have also called on the generosity of the volunteers of Heartfelt. Kittelty has done more than 300 photo sessions for bereaved families.

Sara Sidhom’s baby, Leon, was discovered not to have a heartbeat at 35 weeks and six days’ gestation. Sidhom needs no time to think about her answer when asked what it meant to her and her husband, Angelos, that Kittelty came and photographed their firstborn child with enormous care.

Kylie Kittelty, left, with parents Sara and Angelos Sidhom, and photos taken by Kylie shortly after their baby, Leon, died after being born at 35 weeks and six days’ gestation.

“It’s everything,” she says. “It’s all that we have left of him.”

Even the warmth of the gesture was deeply comforting.

“It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in my life,” Sidhom says. “I’d just given birth for the first time, I’ve lost my son, and my [now late] father-in-law was in hospital at the same time. When Kylie came, we were just met with so much kindness.”

Photographer Gavin Blue created Heartfelt, which is funded by small donations, in 2010 after also living through the trauma of losing an unborn child.

He and the parents and volunteer photographers who spoke to this masthead are hoping to spread the word that the service exists, given that about 3000 babies are stillborn or die perinatally in Australia every year.

They would like more parents to be informed about the service, especially given that 2024 research by Monash University published in Illness, Crisis and Loss found that perinatal bereavement photography contributed to post-traumatic growth in parents after “having expectations of life shattered”.

“Having the photographer present helped parents feel validated that their baby was human and a real loss,” the paper noted. “Many parents reported that having the photographs helped to humanise their experience and communicate to others that their child was a beloved family member.”

Blue said he was motivated to start Heartfelt in part by wanting parents to have very high-quality photographs, presented beautifully and worthy of being displayed.

“We had a little girl who passed away at 32 weeks’ [gestation] in 2006; the hospital took photos, and they were brutal. I just thought, ‘I can do something better here’,” he says.

Most of the 306 photographers giving regular time to Heartfelt Australia and New Zealand are mothers, he says, and as of the end of May this year they had collectively done 19,351 sessions with families.

“Some photographers avoid doing sessions [with bereaved families] that are similar to their own circumstances, but when I hear a family has the same condition [his baby Alexandra] had, I move things to make sure I am available to them.

“I just really want to look after them.”

Doing his bit for other families gives Blue a sense of honouring his daughter’s life, he says.

“Every time I do a session, I know this keeps Alexandra close, it just keeps her memory alive for me, and [I feel] she’s making a difference.”

Sydney photographer Amanda Naylor – also an accountant in a previous career – said she read about Heartfelt in a magazine and felt instantly “that’s my thing”.

She and her husband had been through “the emotional rollercoaster” of IVF, which had left her with especially heightened empathy for women who use it and lose desperately wanted babies.

“I am a very emotional person, I’m the typical ‘cry at a TV ad’ sort of person, I have a lot of empathy and a caring nature I feel is very suited to this,” says Naylor, who has been donating time to do photo shoots with Heartfelt for about eight years.

Photographer Amanda Naylor, right, took family portraits for Nina and Pete Tesseyman with their late baby boy Sol. They have since had baby Cassian.

“I’ve had my [photography] business for about 10 years, but I always say this is the work I’m most proud of.”

As well as the beautiful feedback from families who say things like “if the house was on fire, that’s literally what I would save, the photos from Heartfelt”, for Naylor, the experience of being there at such a critical moment has enriched her life.

“It’s a really raw view on the experience of life,” she says. “We get so caught up in our day-to-day … and you come out of a session, and it’s like ‘This is life and death’. I’m always humbled to be taken into that space and I hold that very dearly.

“I’m often just one of a handful of people who have met their child.”

Naylor says having done about 100 shoots with grieving families, she is left with a sense of awe at their grace: “This is the most traumatic, unexpected experience that they’re having, but there’s so much humility and grace and love. You walk out just blown away by how beautiful and how big love can be.”

In 2022, she photographed NSW parents Nina and Pete Tesseyman and their baby, Sol, who died due to a rare condition that was not detected in utero. Nina’s sister arranged Naylor’s visit, having become aware of the service through a friend who had Heartfelt photos taken.

In the midst of such a crisis, “you don’t know what you should do, or what’s meant to happen, or anything that is going on,” says Nina, who with Pete now has a second baby son, Cassian Sol.

“[A photo shoot] is the last thing you would have thought to do,” she says. “We had to pull every ounce of energy to do it, but it ended up being such a special experience, and now having [the family portraits] is amazing.”

Pete wants other parents to know that, “even if you think it’s the worst thing you could possibly imagine doing, do it: because it will be something you will look back on for the rest of your life”.

What kind-hearted photographers such as Naylor provide, he says, is “more than a gift – it’s an absolute treasure”.

heartfelt.org.au