'I was proud of her, and I wanted to show her off and make sure her memory lives on': Couple pose for heartbreaking photographs with their stillborn daughter to seal her place as part of their family

The California parents of a stillborn baby chose to remember their little girl by having a professional photographer capture her on film.



Lindsey Natzic-Villatoro is accustomed to taking pictures of happy events in people's lives, but she has become aware of the beauty in sad ones, too.



When Richard, 29, and Emily Staley's daughter Monroe was stillborn, they wanted to honor her memory and to acknowledge her as a member of their family.



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Heartbreaking: Emily and Richard Staley with their daughter Monroe Faith Staley

Precious memories: Lindsey Natzic-Villatoro spent time with the family following the birth of baby Monroe and captured photographs they'll cherish forever

'I wanted our family to have some way to show how beautiful our daughter was,' Emily Staley, 26, told Yahoo Health.



'I was proud of her, and I wanted to show her off and make sure her memory lives on.'



The couple shared the pictures on Facebook with friends and family and allowed Natzic-Villatoro, who runs Love Song Events and Photography to also share them.

She describes in the accompanying post the day Emily Staley discovered that her baby had died inside of her.



Alarmed when she couldn't feel the usual movements in her belly, Staley rushed to hospital only to be told that the umbilical cord had become wrapped around the baby's neck and that she had died.



Staley gave birth to Monroe Faith Staley, a full-term baby girl, the following morning via C-section and Natzic-Villatoro was there for the moment the baby was given her first bath and handed to her mother.

Healing: The family wanted to share the photographs of their baby daughter to honor her memory

Cherished family member: The family spent nine hours with Faith after her birth and other family members came to see her

Perfect: Natzic-Villatoro says the full-term baby girl was 'absolute perfection'

'I wanted this family to have every possible memory of this child I could physically give them,' she says.



She had arrived at the hospital unsure of what to expect.



'I was here to help them both. I also told them that there way NO right way to handle this. If they wanted to freak out on me, throw something, cry, yell… whatever, it was absolutely OK,' says Natzic- Villatoro .



The Staleys spent the next nine hours with their precious child as family members came to visit, during which time Natzic-Villatoro took photographs that have become treasured memories for the couple.



Fredda Wasserman of Our House Grief Support Center says that stillbirths are often treated as miscarriages and swept under the rug.



'It’s way too uncomfortable for other people, too scary, too much to look at,' she explained. 'But people who don’t grieve really suffer.'



Taking the photographs and sharing them is a healing process, she told Yahoo Health.

