As if a miscarriage isn't painful enough -- one mother's suffering multiplied when she wanted to have her lost fetus treated with respect. Shayna Spitzack was seven and a half weeks pregnant when she miscarried. Often, in a miscarriage this early in a pregnancy, the tiny fetus is lost in the flow of blood and tissue and ends up accidentally getting flushed down the toilet. But Shayna managed to save hers and wanted to have it cremated. She wrapped it carefully and put it in a box.
Then she called a funeral home (whose director just happened to be married to her midwife). The director wanted to make sure he was following the law correctly, so he called the county coroner, Jeff Baldi. And that's when a sad, private loss turned into a CSI episode.
Apparently the coroner didn't trust Shayna's story. Maybe he's just insensitive, maybe he's watched too much crime TV, but the wheels got turning in his mind and took him to Crazyland. Instead of calling Shayna's obstetrician, who easily could have confirmed the miscarriage, he called the freakin' police.
Next thing Shayna knows, there's a loud pounding on the door. Shayna was expecting the coronor. But it was the police, looking for an aborted or murdered baby hidden in the freezer. Shayna tried to show them the box with the fetus but the waved her off and searched her freezer for the dead baby that wasn't there. The police say the call from the coroner's office made them think this was a possible case of murder. They thought they would find a third-trimester baby.
It all got sorted out eventually. But what the hell! Why did the coroner have to assume the worst when the funeral director called him about treating a dead fetus? What kind of misogynist mindset goes there immediately? It's like he was sitting around waiting to catch some wicked harlot in the act of a late-term abortion! Get a grip, man. That poor woman. First she suffers the pain of her miscarriage, and then she's treated with such suspicion and disrespect. Can we please trust women a little more than this?
Why do you think the coroner was so suspicious after the funeral director's call?
Image via I Should Be Folding Laundry/Flickr
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Comments 174
@ amazzonia, I do not feel what this woman did was creepy at all. It is her way of getting closure after losing a little life. As soon as you find out you are expecting you become a mom. Espechially if it is something you wanted. I couldn't imagine miscarrying a baby, nor can I say exactly how I would respond to it no matter how far along I was. I loved my babies as soon as I found out they were in my belly, apparently this woman did too which is shown by what she did for this little one after it had passed. As for the treatment I believe it could have been avoided with proper investigation.
Naomi, can you not read???? The author edited her blog and didnt say she edited it. She said 7 1/2 months at first.. THat is why several people said that.
I do not understand why people here are creeped out by this. Do you remember in the "the Help", the one character buried hers too??? Some people want to do this, and they feel like they are giving it closure. Give it a rest.
Hey, with all the crap going around now a days, he did do the right thing. I feel bad for her misscarriage, but people are doing horrible stuff all the time now, he was right to check in on it.
I find it a bit disturbing that she kept the tiny embryo and wanted it cremated...