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Would you have labor induced to deliver a 20-week-old fetus that had already died?

David Hlavsa's wife, given the choice between childbirth and a D&C, chose to go through labor -- painful, induced labor in a maternity ward-- so that she could see and hold the dead child. She keeps the baby's ashes -- a teaspoonful -- in the drawer at her bedside.

We each assumed there was only one possible decision, so when we talked, we talked logistics: appointments to reschedule, job responsibilities to manage. We asked questions we might have asked the midwife, about recovery time.

Then we realized we weren?t in agreement. I was talking about the D and C, while Lisa had decided to give birth. Incredulous, I asked why she would want to go through all that pain. She said she couldn?t imagine just getting rid of our child by a surgical procedure; she wanted to see him....

Resting on my outstretched hand, he was thin, nearly weightless, his skin pinkish-gray and translucent. He seemed to me less like a small baby than a scale model of a stripling child. I cradled his head between the ends of my middle and ring fingers, his features peaceful, perfect, blank.

When we got back from the hospital, the epidural had not quite worn off, so Lisa did not have full use of her legs and clung to me as we staggered up the front steps. Thinking of ourselves as a public spectacle (How must we look to the neighbors? Drunk again!), we burst out laughing. Once inside, the bleak humor continued: Anacephalic? All right, so he won?t go to Harvard.

It wasn?t until I had settled Lisa onto the couch that my own legs quit working. I was in midsentence ? something about an errand ? teakettle in hand, halfway between the tap and the stove. A spasm went through me, I doubled over and I heard my own voice howling from far off, the full-throated cry of a child.

This story is published in the "Modern Love" section of the NYT. I know it will make some people talk about abortion and the right to life, and I know what both sides will say about the story to appropriate it. It's inevitable, but maybe it's wrong.

Full post as published by Althouse on September 21, 2008 (boomark / email).