Rainbow Baby Photoshoot Goes Viral

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An incredible photo of a rainbow baby has gone viral as it perfectly highlights the long and difficult IVF journey that a couple endured to conceive.

We are sure that many can relate…

After 4 years, 3 miscarriages, and over 1,600 shots, Patricia and Kimberly O’Neill finally welcomed their baby girl into the world this month.

Kimberly said to CNN that she started looking at newborn photo ideas as soon as the couple began their pregnancy journey and knew that she wanted to save the needles from the IVF treatments.

“My wife saved every single needle that I injected, all capped and plastic seals around them and everything,” Patricia explained.

And this gorgeous shoot was the result.

Their pregnancy journey lasted for 4 years and it set them back about $40,000.

The images of baby London highlight all the effort the O’Neills put into becoming her parents.

“We just thought it would only take going into a fertility clinic and nine months later, we’d have a baby,” Patricia shared. “It just didn’t happen like that for us.” Patricia carried each pregnancy.

After losing their first baby at 6 weeks and their second baby at 8 weeks, the couple found out that Patricia had Factor V Leiden, which is basically a blood-clotting condition which can impact pregnancies.

The couple then lost the third embryo but their fourth time around they became pregnant. “We were excited. We went in to eight weeks in and we knew it was a boy,” Patricia said to CNN. “We saw the heart beat and then we went at 11 weeks and the heartbeat had stopped.”

Understandably, the pair were devastated by the continued loss. “I was done and I couldn’t do it anymore. But my wife and I, we started this journey together, and we decided we would always be together in the hard decisions and she wasn’t done,” Patricia said.

Prior to using their last embryo, the couple found a new doctor that specialized in Patricia’s clotting condition. The Doctor prescribed two shots a day of blood-thinning medicine in addition to the IVF shots, which led to all of the syringes used to make the heart around baby London in the photo.

They used the IVF needles to create the rings which go around the heart. Many couples who struggle with fertility take similar photos, but the O’Neill’s journey hit a nerve with people online and racked up more than 60,000 shares and thousands of comments. “I hope that there’s a couple out there that’s going through what we are that can see that there’s hope at the end of the tunnel,” Patricia explained. “There’s a light and you just have to get there.”

Samantha Packer of Packer Family Photography assisted the O’Neills to compose the perfect photo of their rainbow baby, which is a child conceived after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death.

They wrapped London in a rainbow fabric and Packer spent more than an hour arranging the needles. “The heart symbolized … that this whole painful journey was all to love a child,” Packer shared. “I think that’s why the photo resonated with so many people. The journey, the goal and the baby, it was a lot.”

Image: Packer Family Photographer