THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 309 lines
EIGHT. . . nine. . . ten.''
Dana Griffin would count the fingers, count the toes. Alone in the living room of her Virginia Beach house, all the lights off, watching a videotape of her unborn baby.
She thought she could see her nose on the baby as she gazed at the sonogram, a murky image taken with sound waves. She and her husband, Shawn, had said they didn't want to know the sex. But Dana thought she could tell that they had a boy.
Her husband, a petty officer in the Navy, was at sea. He missed the 16th-week ultrasound of his first child, so Dana got the videotape. The baby kicked and squirmed. Dana watched over and over.
That baby. They had wanted him so much.
But there were terrible problems - deformities that she couldn't see in that image.
Dana and Shawn believe they did they only thing they could two years ago, when Dana had an abortion in the second trimester of that pregnancy.
But they have good days, and they have bad days, when Shawn Jr.'s ghost seems to live in the house, and they wonder what he might say.
He's been on their minds a lot lately. Last year, Congress passed a bill banning the so-called ``partial-birth'' abortion, a late-term procedure. President Clinton vetoed that bill. The fight became an issue in the presidential campaign last fall. Now Chesapeake Sen. Mark L. Earley has introduced a similar bill in the General Assembly. And, on the federal level, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi has re-introduced legislation to stop the procedure.
The procedure described in the state and federal bills was not the one used on the Griffins; the ``partial-birth'' procedure is not done in Hampton Roads, according to a doctor familiar with local practices. Doctors here use other methods, although the result is the same.
But the imagery evoked by these debates - of healthy babies killed moments from their first breath - and the air of condemnation that surrounds discussions of late-term procedures, infuriates the Griffins.
``People say you're either pro-life or pro-choice. But we weren't given a choice,'' said Dana.
Shawn and Dana tried for a year and a half to have a child. But the baby didn't come at first. Fertility drugs had bad side effects. They swallowed their disappointment and waited.
It was such a joy when she became pregnant without medical help. She went out and bought a teddy bear. And she bought a little teething ring with sports cartoons on it, pinned to a pair of baby booties. She just knew the baby was a boy.
When Shawn came home that night - Sept. 6, 1994 - she made him close his eyes and put out his hand. She gave him the teething ring and booties.
That was a happy time.
Although Shawn missed the 16th-week sonogram, he was there for the next, at the end of the 18th week.
He and Dana watched the screen. They found it hard to read the image, so they pointed to landmarks they could see, like the spine.
The medical technician was too quiet. They grew uncomfortable. The technician said they needed to talk to a doctor very soon. She wouldn't tell them why.
That night, they sat on the couch and tried to imagine the worst. Down syndrome? Missing limbs? Severely retarded?
Suddenly, things that had not been acceptable before became acceptable. They would cherish a child with Down syndrome or other problems, they said.
Shawn had loved Dana since he was a high-school sophomore and she was an eighth-grader in Racine, Wisc. Since their first date in 1982, when his mom drove them to a movie theater and he was so nervous he could barely talk. They married in 1991.
They like to say that they know each other better than they know themselves. But something changed between them the night they talked about the sonogram. The baby belonged to both of them. But the baby lived in Dana's body. Shawn felt he could never really understand what that meant.
Dana blamed herself. She was taking medicine to control a thyroid problem. She thought it must have hurt the baby somehow.
The next morning they saw Dr. R. Nathan Slotnick, an obstetrician and director of reproductive genetics at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk who handles high-risk pregnancies, including cases with genetic deformities.
Two doctors did separate high-resolution sonograms, just to be sure.
The baby, who they learned really was a boy, had a cleft lip and palate, which is a hole in the roof of the mouth and upper lip. His heart had only three chambers, not four, and it had a large hole. There was no stomach. Slotnick suspected a diaphragmatic hernia, a hole in the diaphragm which allowed the bowels to enter the chest cavity, pushing the heart aside and squeezing out space so the lungs never developed.
The worst problem was something called holoprosencephaly. The front part of the brain never separated into the normal two hemispheres. The ventricles, cavities that contain cerebrospinal fluid, didn't drain; as they expanded, they would crush what little brain tissue was left.
Slotnick and his staff figured the baby probably had an extra chromosome, 47 instead of the normal 46.
The baby's abdomen hadn't sealed, and the intestines were jutting out, attached to the umbilical cord. Dana realized that she had seen that on the earlier shadowy sonogram. But she thought it meant the baby was a boy.
Shawn Jr. got one break: He had two eyes, in the right place. Some babies with holoprosencephaly have a condition called cyclopia - a single eye, like the mythical Cyclops. Because the front of the brain doesn't develop properly, the eyes don't fall into place. The eyes fuse, or form too close together, or never appear at all, or sit underneath the nose.
Those were only the worst problems. The list went on and on.
``So what are we looking at? Heart surgeries?'' Shawn asked.
No, said the doctor.
Even with emergency cardiac surgery and aggressive use of life support, the baby was unlikely to live more than a day.
Afterward, Dana and Shawn went to a restaurant for dinner. They ordered drinks. Dana figured there was no point in abstaining now.
They had a choice. They could complete the pregnancy - carry the baby for another four months, hold him and say goodbye. Shawn Jr. - they had started calling him by their chosen boy's name - would die quickly because of his many problems.
Or they could have an abortion . The abortion would be similar to labor, but the fetus would die before leaving the womb. A genetic counselor in Slotnick's office had made an appointment in a week or so for the procedure, so they could get it done as soon as possible after making a decision, but she told them they could cancel at any time.
A few days after they visited Slotnick, the genetic counselor called them with another choice - surgical abortion. Dana would be asleep. The fetus would be killed with a drug, then extracted with surgical instruments. The fetus was so small and poorly developed that they could still pursue this option.
State law bans abortions after 24 weeks, and it requires that any abortion after 22 weeks be approved by several doctors and done only in cases of medical necessity. This can include gross fetal abnormality.
As a matter of policy, Slotnick won't do the surgical procedure after the 20th week. Anything beyond that is too uncomfortable for his staff.
Dana asked about pain. Doctors don't think that a person without a brain can feel pain, since there's nothing to receive signals from other parts of the body. The baby has simple reflexes, though, even without a brain. That's why the baby moves around.
Maybe an abortion would save Shawn Jr. from some suffering, they thought. But it was too easy to say it would be best for the baby. Dana also knew it would be better for her.
Maybe she should have the baby, she thought, so she could hold Shawn Jr.'s body. Maybe that would be her penance for having given him all those problems and for thinking about aborting him.
Shawn wanted to end the anguish and go with the abortion. But he refused to share his thoughts with Dana. One reason was principle: He believes that abortion is not a man's issue. The other was pragmatic: What if she took his advice and regretted it? She would blame him forever.
He saw they were slipping into old-fashioned roles. She grieved. He stood by and tried to be strong. He said he'd support anything she did.
One night, Dana couldn't stand his reserve any more. She pressed him.
``It's up to you,'' he said.
She ran to the bathroom and locked the door. She turned on the shower to mask the noise, then sank into a corner and sobbed.
She was in there so long that Shawn got scared. He pounded the door and called. She wouldn't answer.
He threw his heavy body against the hollow door, cracking it and pulling the lock out of the housing. Dana was sitting between the toilet and the tub, head between her knees.
He pulled her into his arms and carried her to the bed. They sat and cried.
A few days before the appointment, she started suffering contractions. It might mean that the fetus had died and her body was trying to miscarry. She prayed the decision had been taken from her.
But ultrasound showed Shawn Jr.'s heart still beat. That's when she knew she couldn't stand four months of feeling him kick, knowing each day he was dying a little bit more. She couldn't deliver him to watch him die.
That night, she had a dream. Shawn Jr. was 2 or 3 years old, healthy and whole. He told her she was doing the right thing.
She lay in the pre-op area at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital on Dec. 8 and looked at her stomach. She was just starting to show. She thought about how she had longed for the day when she would look like a pregnant lady.
She tried to say goodbye to Shawn Jr., but she knew he couldn't hear her and wouldn't understand if he could. She believes in heaven. She said she hoped someday she would be able to see him and hold him and tell him she loved him, and that she thought this was best both of them.
The procedure was painful. Doctors inserted laminaria - a roll of seaweed the size of a matchstick that swells when it absorbs water - in the entrance of her uterus to start the process. The cramps were agony.
She was asleep, though, when the doctor performed the abortion. The fetus was delivered dead and sent to the laboratory.
Shawn paced in the waiting room like a caged bear. He had lost his son. He was sure Dana was going to die on the table, too.
But she survived, and she rode home on a pile of pillows in the car. She slept while Shawn surfed sport sites on the Internet, trying to lose himself in something.
Dana had begun decorating the house for Christmas, but had stopped when they got the bad news. A pine garland wrapped around the banister, but the string of lights that was supposed to go with the garland sat in a pile at the top of the stairs.
They didn't want to buy presents for each other, but family was coming, and they were afraid it would make everyone else unhappy if they didn't exchange gifts.
Over the holidays, Dana sometimes broke down in front of family and friends. She watched friends draw away, unsure what to say. Every ``Happy Holidays'' card enraged her.
Doubt was a frequent companion. What if they had done the wrong thing? What if Shawn Jr. really hadn't been so bad off?
The Griffin's doubt is a common for couples who have had such an abortion, said Deni Elliot, a medical ethicist with the University of Montana who has studied similar cases.
Elliot recommends that the couple view the remains of the fetus, even if the prospect sounds horrible and graphic. ``It seems to help people put it behind them and move on.''
Dana and Shawn didn't have that, but they did have the laboratory results, which named five serious genetic conditions that might have caused the problem.
The results, about a month after the abortion, brought more bad news. Shawn Jr.'s problems had not been caused by an extra chromosome - a genetic accident that had only a small chance of repeating itself.
Shawn and Dana probably each carry a recessive gene that had caused the defects. Any child they conceived had as much as a 25 percent chance of inheriting the same problems.
How could they ever try again? She made an appointment to get birth control pills while they contemplated their options.
On Saturday, Feb. 4, a cramp nudged Dana awake. It wasn't a menstrual cramp. She had felt this before. It was like the ligaments were stretching to accommodate something.
She woke up Shawn and asked him to take her to the grocery store. She said they needed to get a home pregnancy test.
She hadn't thought she could get pregnant so soon. They didn't feel ready.
It would be 13 weeks or so before a sonogram could tell them about this baby.
They struggled to live in each day, to reject expectations. Dana had returned to work as a secretary, and that helped a little. They never talked about due dates or how old the baby would be at Christmas. They didn't buy clothes or toys or look for a new crib.
They fought a lot over meaningless stuff. You left your cup there. I told you to put your cup in the dishwasher.
This time, their insurance plan made them go to the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth. They pressed to have the sonogram done as soon as possible and so, in the 15th week, Dana lay on a table while a doctor passed the wand over her stomach.
She couldn't see the screen well from where she lay. Shawn positioned himself for a better look, but he never has been able to decipher those images as well as Dana. He held his breath.
Their new doctor was perfunctory. ``Everything looks fine. Everything's OK.'' He was so matter-of-fact that they didn't quite believe him. They kept quizzing him. So there's no water on the brain?
Finally, he said, ``The problems you saw in your first pregnancy are not here.''
The doctor asked if they wanted to know the sex. They had agreed beforehand that they would rather be surprised. But Dana suddenly felt she had had enough surprises.
She said to Shawn, ``Do you care?''
``No,'' he answered. ``Go ahead.''
It was a girl. They named her Alexandra.
Dana didn't feel the overwhelming sense of relief that she thought she would.
But slowly, as the weeks wore on and her belly grew so that she looked like a pregnant lady, they both relaxed.
Shawn had bought Dana a puppy, and she tried to train him. For a time, they thought Shawn would get transferred, and they fixed up their house to sell. She started exercising.
Dana bought a maternity bathing suit, even though she had sworn she'd never wear one. It was green with blue flowers and a lot of gathers at the front. They would swim in a nearby lake, kissing and holding each other, feeling the tension between them ease.
She bought replacements for the baby things she had returned when Shawn Jr. died. But not exactly the same. This baby got a Winnie the Pooh crib set - Shawn Jr.'s had been Mickey and Minnie babies.
By the third trimester, when she felt her daughter move and hiccup, Dana could smile.
Alexandra came on her due date, Oct. 14, 1995. She had her dad's big head - round and unbending through the birth canal. The rest of her body seemed to shoot out. There was silence, then a baby scream, and Dana knew it would be all right.
Shawn cut the umbilical cord while tears dribbled beneath his surgical mask. He brought the baby to Dana. He let go as Dana wrapped the child in her arms. And he was free.
``That's when the weight went off my shoulders,'' he recalled. ``I felt like she was OK when I gave her to my wife, because I felt like she belonged with my wife.''
Alexandra - ``Alex'' for short - still has her daddy's big, hard head. When the 15-month-old wants a toy, nothing gets in her way. She's not shy around visitors, as a rule. She's still pretty bald, which is good, because when she feeds herself, half the food ends up on her head.
Sometimes, Dana feels guilty about the joy she gets from her daughter.
Sometimes, Shawn looks at Alex and wonders how much of Shawn Jr. he might see in her. But he knows Shawn Jr. would not have been like Alexandra.
Sometimes, Dana wonders if she betrayed her son by giving Alex the teddy bear that they bought for Shawn Jr., one of the few things of his they kept.
They may have another child. Before Alex, Dana thought: There's a 25 percent chance of the same problems. Now, she thinks about the 75 percent chance that the baby will be fine.
Alex forces them to look at the future. Her influence, and time, and talking, have helped heal the wounds.
But there will always be a scar.
If they talk too long about it, Dana cries. Or they fight over the details, like when Shawn incorrectly remembers that they picked the Paddington Bear crib set for Shawn Jr.
She feels that she bears more of the guilt. And Shawn wonders if, by letting her make the decision, he actually abandoned her.
Not long after the abortion, Shawn and Dana went to Williamsburg and bought a thick, royal blue candle for Shawn Jr. It sits on a table by the back door, where sunlight has faded it to purple.
Every Dec. 8, the day he died, they light the candle. When Shawn was out at sea in 1995, he brought a candle with him, and he and Dana lit their candles at midnight.
Dana told Shawn Jr. she hoped he was happy in heaven and not scared. Shawn said he hoped that Shawn's grandfather and Dana's grandfather were taking care of him. They both asked him to watch over his sister, who was lying on the couch next to Dana.
Dana says she doesn't care what people think about her decision. Critics can't hurt her worse than she's been hurt, she says, and sympathizers won't heal her.
But it's clear that the rhetoric of the political debate makes them angry.
``You can't possibly know - you can't possibly know - until it happens,'' she says. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Vicki Cronis/The Virginian-Pilot
[Dana and Shawn Griffin with 15-month-old Alexandra...]
KEYWORDS: ABORTION LATE TERM ABORTION PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION
PROFILE