The impact of NILMDTS: Nora’s Story

When our daughter Nora was stillborn in February 2022, my husband Vincent and I were gripped by a crippling fear that somehow her memory would slip away from us. When the life of a child you hoped and prayed for is so tragically brief, there is an impulsive reaction to gather any tangible evidence of it – hospital bracelets, swaddling blankets, footprints, paperwork bearing your child’s name. The feeling of such desperation is a deeply unsettling experience, and something we continue to struggle with as time passes since her birth.

Nora by NILMDTS Affiliated Photographer Sarah Love

What resulted from our efforts is a beautiful collection illustrating a life well loved, no matter how short. Our home is quietly littered with pieces of Nora. On the mantle above the fireplace, an ultrasound photo accompanied by a cross bearing her name, handmade by the same Trappist monks who crafted her casket. In her little brother’s nursery, a frame of pressed rose petals – taken from the arrangement on which she rested at her funeral Mass – hangs above the crib.

Her dad never leaves the house without donning the leather bracelet bearing a charm of her footprints, and the letters spelling out her name live permanently on a gold chain around my neck. …