This is to the woman who wondered if a photo of a dead baby was necessary on a Facebook feed.

Yes. That photo of a dead baby was necessary because that dead baby is MY dead baby.

That dead baby–the one you “didn’t have time to look away from”–she’s my daughter. Her name is Dorothy and I wish I could see her face right now. But, I can’t because as you so helpfully pointed out–she’s dead.

I can’t see her face every day, so instead I shared my only picture of her. It felt necessary to do so because I miss her.

It was necessary to share her photo because she is one of the millions of babies who are stillborn every year.

She is the face of a silent crisis that is impacting families worldwide. Stillbirth is real and it is scary and sometimes it is necessary to talk about the real and scary things in life.

Your comment proved how necessary it is for me to continue sharing Dorothy’s photo.

I will keep sharing her photo, but not because your words hurt. I will keep sharing because I’m afraid another parent who has lost their baby will read your comment and it will scare them from sharing their photos and their memories.

I will keep sharing my dead baby so that they know solidarity if they ever choose to share theirs.

I’m nearly finished with this letter and I’m debating whether it is necessary to share this. I read comments like yours daily and it is exhausting to give time to hurtful words like yours. I should probably just delete this.

However, it feels necessary to put this out there. You will probably never read this, but maybe someone else who makes comments like yours will. Maybe they will realize that those dead babies are the sons and daughters of grieving families.

You can go ahead and turn away from our dead babies. We can not and we will not. They are the loves of our life and their death is a reality that we face every day.

So, yes. I think it’s necessary to share a photo of my daughter on social media.

The only thing that seems unnecessary is your comment.

Originally published on An Unexpected Family Outing