A brave mother shared photos of her dead child at only 14 weeks to prove that he is a ‘real baby.
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40-year-old Sharran Sutherland took the heartbreaking photos of her 4-inch-long son, Miran, who weighed only 26 grams, showing his fully-formed feet, hands, face, and fingernails.
In some states in the US, babies cannot be legally classified as a baby until they are 20 weeks old. This means Miran would’ve been disposed of as medical waste if his loving parents didn’t interfere.
Parents Sharran and Michael kept their little angel in the fridge for several days before burying him in a flowerpot.
Despite their heartbreak, Sharran said that she was happy to see and hold Miran before finally saying goodbye. However, she said that her son’s legal status as a fetus and not a child has prevented her from grieving properly.
Sharran is now sharing photos of Miran to show people how fully- formed babies can be at an early phase.
“Looking at him, holding him in my hand, looking at how perfectly formed he was: I was amazed,” Sharran expressed.
“I just couldn’t believe how perfect everything was on him. His ears, his tongue, his gums, his lips. I couldn’t believe it.
“You have those baby books that show you diagrams of a baby in utero but he didn’t look like anything I had ever seen. I was just filled with such awe and amazement with him.
“He just needed to continue maturing and growing and developing. It blew me away. It was an incredible feeling. It’s really hard to describe.
“Even though he had died, I was given that chance to hold my baby still. That longing was fulfilled. I was grateful for that. I couldn’t fathom it.”
When doctors urged her to have the baby removed after a sonogram revealed Miran’s heart stopped beating, she opted to give birth naturally as she “didn’t want her baby to come out in pieces.”
She added: “When a woman loses her unborn child she’s not able to grieve in the same way as a woman who gave birth to a baby that dies after being born.
“When a woman loses her unborn baby it’s almost like you don’t speak of it.
“A woman goes through it alone and I believe that’s because other people don’t recognize it as a human, as a baby.
“This isn’t just about a woman grieving over her baby and not being able to give her baby life, it’s about not recognizing that this is a baby. It’s just a tiny baby.”
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