Mad, mad, mad.

This was bound to happen, but it pissed me off more than I thought it would.

So I was interviewed by a local newspaper about the group that I run. The woman who interviewed me was very thorough, and while she clearly had no context for understanding what it would actually feel like to lose a child and was obviously quite surprised by some of the things I had to say, she asked good questions to try to get a handle on what she needed to know. She was very intrigued that "people like us" take photographs of our dead babies. "You can do that?" she asked me incredulously. I told her that yes, you actually could, that it had once been very common for people to photograph their dead but had fallen by the wayside with the arrival of home cameras (which allowed many fortunate people to have photos of their loved ones alive). She asked whether she might be able to print a photo of myself with Charlotte in her paper, if her editor would allow it. She'd have to check with him.

Now I know, as the words are escaping her mouth, that there is no way in hell the editor of this conservative, Springfield MA newspaper is going to publish a photograph of me, unclothed in a hospital bed, with my deceased child, also unclothed, across my bare breast (no nipple, though!). Just the same, I encourage the woman to encourage him to publish it. I tell him about the positive reaction Mothering Magazine had when they braved the criticism and published the photo. I tell her how important it is to make this real for people. I send her the photo. I know it will be rejected.

So today she calls to arrange for the photographer to come to my house to photograph me "with my children". The editor, she reports, "couldn't withstand" the photograph of me with Charlotte. "It really upset him," she told me.

Oh, that poor editor. Imagine him being upset by that photograph of me. Imagine him having to step out of his charmed life for a moment and fathom that some people have to LIVE with the reality EVERY SINGLE DAY that their child is dead. Pity that poor man for having to face me for a brief moment, to know that all I have left of my daughter is a black and white photograph. How upsetting.

I informed the woman that I was deeply offended by her publisher's decision. I then asked her if he would permit me to be holding a photograph of Charlotte, just a head shot, in the picture that the photographer took, so that it would be very tiny. She left, asked him and came back.

Nope.

So I told her that perhaps my living children wouldn't be in the picture after all. I told her they could choose to include my children, or not. I really wanted to tell her to tell her editor to take the article and stuff it up is a** but frankly I appreciate the publicity of the article, whatever it includes, and certainly it will inform lots of people who might otherwise never hear of our group which is of huge value to me.

So what I've decided is that once the article is published, (and I'm scheming ways to include Charlotte in the picture otherwise, don't you worry) I am going to try to organize a letter writing campaign to the newspaper regarding the article and in response to the fact that there was no photo included. So I hope that you will be willing to send a postcard for me when that time comes. I'll keep you posted. I really am so much more pissed off than I thought I would be. Even though I knew, knew, knew what they would say. Knew it! But it bit my soul deep down. Truly I wanted to cry.

(I also felt a lot of rage, and wrote and deleted a lot of expletives while writing this. I don't like to think of myself as a huge F word person but let me tell you the F bombs flew)