We looked at the photos of Kat last night. It was the second time I'd seen them, the first time Michael had. The hospital had to post the photos to us because their computers had crashed while we were there and they couldn't get the disc done. The day they arrived we picked up the mail together at lunch time and I'd told Michael that on the one hand I wanted to look at them with him but on the other I didn't know if I could wait until he got home from work that night. He said he didn't mind if I didn't wait for him, so I went home and looked at them and I guess what I said later made him not want to see them. I'm not sure if I've written about this on here before or not - I have a feeling that I have done - but the pictures are not how I remember her looking. It probably sounds like a really strange comment to make in the circumstances, but in the pictures she looks dead and I don't remember her as looking dead. She was a very dark brown colour, which surprised me. If anything I was expecting her to be blue/grey. She was tiny and obviously not "finished" yet - her arms and legs didn't really look defined, it was hard to believe there were bones in there and I was scared to move her in case I broke one of her limbs - but she was perfectly formed. Her ears were still squashed flat against her head and her nose was still flat against her face, but her face still had her own distinctive shape about it. The way her cheeks sloped towards her nose, her eye shape and mouth were all there. Her mouth was one of the things I looked at the most. It was open and I could see her tongue, which was so complete and perfect inside that miniature mouth with bow-shaped lips. But in the pictures, the flash brought out things we couldn't see. There's a large white ring around her mouth and rather than having the appearance of her mouth being slightly open it looks like it's just hanging open with this big ring around it. I don't remember her skin being sucked around the bones at the front of her skull either, but those bones are really obvious in the pictures. And the flash also brought out the translucency of her skin. In pregnancy books they talk about the blood vessels being visible under the skin and in the photos you can see that. We couldn't at all with the naked eye, she was just brown. Once I saw them I was glad we had them and I can totally understand why these photos are taken now. It's not very long ago that stillborn babies, or those that died shortly after death, were just taken away and the mum sent home to get on with it. Acknowledging that these babies lived and are loved is very recent and very important and holding the baby and taking photos is a big part of that. But I also knew that if I hadn't wanted to see her in the hospital and then later looked at the photos I would have been horrified of what I had given birth to. And so we had put them away in the box of Kat's things and didn't get them back out til last night. I very suddenly had a really strong desire to look at the pictures of her in our arms. I just wanted to see us holding our baby girl. And it turned out there was something I missed the first time I saw them. In the ones of us holding her, she was wrapped in a blanket and from the angle the pictures were taken you can only just see the top of her head. But there's one of Michael holding her where you can see the profile of her face. It looks just like what we saw at all the ultrasounds. And she's beautiful.