Erik Grieve’s Death Leaves Questions about His Unborn Child

“What about the baby?” I asked Lizellen.

She leaned against a small wooden desk, arms folded in front of her pink blouse. “What about her? She’ll be fine. Bet­ter than fine. Babies are resilient.”

It had only been twelve hours since my husband’s death. My mom had called Lizellen to give her the news.

“Lizellen wants you to come in as soon as you’re able,” she said. “You don’t need an appoint­ment. She said she’ll make her­self avail­able when we get there.”

As my obste­tri­cian, I knew Lizellen needed to stay in the loop. She needed to make sure things with my preg­nancy con­tin­ued normally.

And I needed more med­ica­tion. Much more med­ica­tion. The five sleep­ing pills I was given the night before just weren’t going to cut it.

I needed Lizellen to dope me up. Dope me up good, so that I could float far away. Float far away to the place where Erik had gone, the place where I could pre­tend my hus­band was still alive.

She squirted the clear Gel across my exposed, potrud­ing belly.

Since Tatiana’s birth, Lizellen had become more than my obste­tri­cian. At least 15 large pho­tographs of mine hung on dis­play through­out her exam rooms. She loved my hand-tinted black and whites of babies. And she loved spread­ing my name, bring­ing me more business.

Lizellen was always grate­ful when Erik sent her cool Harry Pot­ter hats, Star Wars posters, and other movie gear that could only be got­ten from Lucasdigital.

“That’s why we’re tak­ing this peek,” Lizellen said. “To put Mommy at ease. But, you’re going to be just fine. You’re a strong cookie.”

I hiked my black cot­ton mater­nity dress fur­ther up beneath my bra.

It had seemed only appro­pri­ate to choose black that morn­ing. That slow-motion morn­ing just nine hours after I fin­ished donat­ing his organs, when I stood in the closet—our closet—and felt dis­ori­ented over the sim­ple task of get­ting dressed.

Erik’s clothes hung neatly to the right, as if he would walk into our over-sized closet in a pair of jeans and no shirt, hold out his black sweater in one hand and his bur­gundy button-down in the other, and ask me, “which one?”

But he didn’t come into the closet that morn­ing because he was dead.

My Erik was dead.

I looked up at my mom, who stood to the left of the exam table on which I was stretched out. Our eyes reached to touch one another, a life-line to sur­vival that I would grasp for over and over in the year to come.

She put her hand on my shin. “Yes, she is. She has always been very strong.”

I imag­ined my mom in Tatiana’s room, in the dark, lift­ing Tatiana into her crib and wait­ing for us to call from the hos­pi­tal. The wait­ing. How awful to wait.

How awful to get the call from me say­ing, “He’s gone. He’s gone.” To feel the dis­in­te­gra­tion of what defined her daughter’s life.

I had no idea then how much my mom would be affected by her need to care for me, by the real­iza­tion that there was noth­ing she could do to take away her daughter’s pain.

The sono­gram device was like a cold, wet snake slith­er­ing across my taut skin.

“Not that I want to be strong,” I said. “But there are really only two choices here. No, really only one. I have to be strong. I’m a Mommy.”

“That’s the way it works. You betcha.” Lizellen’s freck­led hand moved in quick cir­cu­lar motions. She was a ves­sel of fiery, intel­li­gent energy—one of those peo­ple who spoke rapidly to keep up with her brain. “Now, let’s find this lit­tle cutie in here. Where are ya, ya lit­tle cutie? Ah, there you are. Yeah, look at that heart beat, strong. And how bout that? See that sweet lit­tle face? Right there.”

Lizellen pointed to the view­ing mon­i­tor. “Look, look. She’s look­ing right at us.”

I watched the baby’s arms and legs move around. Tiny hands curl­ing their fin­gers. The rhyth­mic pump of her heart. A skele­tal video of the baby who would be born in two months.

“Look at her honey,” my mom said, “Look at her. She’s beautiful.”

“Yep. She cer­tainly is,” Lizellen said.

I stud­ied the sono­gram screen and felt nothing.

Worse than noth­ing, I didn’t want her.

I didn’t want my baby.

Erik wasn’t there to watch with me. Erik wasn’t there to video the sono­gram or make excited com­ments over her move­ment, and he wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t be there for her birth. He wouldn’t be there to see Tatiana hold her baby sis­ter for the first time.

Oh my God, I don’t want her.

I didn’t want the baby that Erik and I had con­ceived in my stu­dio, on my seam­less white back­drop roll.

Just a few min­utes before, I had been eager to check on the baby. Eager to make sure that every­thing was alright. And now, now I didn’t want her.

I said nothing.

How am I going to do this with­out him?

I didn’t want this new baby with­out him. I needed to take care of Tatiana. To hide her and hold her and make sure that noth­ing ever hap­pened to her. There wasn’t space for this baby.

There wasn’t space for another being who needed some­thing from me. How was I going to take care of two babies when I couldn’t take care of myself?

I didn’t even know how to tell Tatiana that her daddy had died.

“Every­thing looks per­fect,” Lizellen said. “Noth­ing to worry about.”

“Ouch.” I felt a kick inside of me.

“Oh, yeah, you felt that one, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s a fiesty one, alright.”

Tears wet my face.

“You’re going to be OK. I know it. Erik will make sure of it.” Lizellen said.

She wiped the gel off of my belly. “Oh, that Erik. I’ll never for­get his expres­sion, the utter joy, when Tatiana was born. When I handed him the baby. Cry­ing. Never seen a grown man cry so hard. He’ll be there for this one. He’ll be watch­ing out for you. You betcha.”

My mom squeezed my hand.

I let myself cry, really cry. “I can’t. I can’t believe I’m say­ing this, but, but … I don’t want her. How can I? How can I have her? How can I bring her into … this? It’s not right. None of this. None of this is right.”

Lizellen spoke after a moment of silence. “This is a very nat­ural feel­ing. You’ll get past it. You’ll see.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. “Just the idea. Just the idea … of hav­ing this baby … with­out him. I’m sure I’ll love her, but it doesn’t seem fair.”

“Hey, lis­ten,” Lizellen said. “There are plenty of moth­ers who give birth to their babies and take a look at them and say, ‘What is THIS?’ No attach­ment what­so­ever. You didn’t have that prob­lem with Tatiana and you won’t have that prob­lem with this one.”

I rubbed on the side of my belly. “This poor baby.”

My mom stroked my hair, tuck­ing it behind my ear with her index fin­ger, like she used to when I was a child. “Can you give her any­thing? Any medication?”

“Didn’t they give you some­thing last night?” Lizellen asked.

I sat up. “Sleep­ing pills. Five sleep­ing pills.”

“Unfor­tu­nately, there’s noth­ing else that’s safe for the baby. And those aren’t safe for the baby. So, I want you to take only one of those the next cou­ple of nights, and then a half and then none. Only if you absolutely have to.”

My mom handed me a tis­sue. “Can she drink?”

“Oh, sure. She can drink.”

We all laughed.

“A glass of red wine here and there is no big deal.”

“That’ll make me even more depressed.”

Lizellen moved the sono­gram equip­ment away. “About not want­ing the baby, trust me that this will pass. I tell you, I had a patient, same kind of sit­u­a­tion, except she already had two other chil­dren, and her hus­band died. She was right at the cut­off for late-term abor­tion and she wanted to abort the child. I said, no way. I wouldn’t do it. There was no way I thought she had the abil­ity to make that kind of deci­sion under those cir­cum­stances, aside from the fact that I don’t do abor­tions that late in the preg­nan­cies. I don’t agree with it.”

“Of course not,” I whispered.

“Any­way, she thought she couldn’t han­dle that baby. She had it set in her mind that she didn’t want it, so she got one of the other doc­tors to do it. She aborted that baby. And you know what? Twenty years later, she still lives here in Marin, and I run into her down­town and she tells me that, after all these years, she has the biggest hole … not from the death of her hus­band, but from her deci­sion to abort that child. She wishes she had kept that baby. She regrets it beyond belief. Not that you even have that option.”

“And I wouldn’t do it if I did have the option. How could I not love this baby? She’s a part of him. Of us.”