Couple's attempt to do the right thing brings more grief

Jessica Tebow, a freelance writer living in Glendale, was one month pregnant when she got the wrenching news.

A sonogram showed that her baby's heart had stopped.

Tebow and her husband, psychologist Michael Ohlde, are both 34. They grew up in Kansas and moved to California six years ago, and this would have been their first child. They were traumatized, and they had no idea how much worse things would get.

Tebow decided she wanted to miscarry naturally, rather than undergo a medical procedure. Nine days later, her body began to expel the fetal tissue while she was at home. That took about three days, and she saved the tissue in a small bag and called her doctor's office.

"I know this is going to sound weird," she said, "but what do I do with the baby?"

Tebow was told she could bring the tissue to the doctor for genetic testing, or she could call a mortuary to handle the remains. If she wasn't ready to decide, the doctor's office said, she should freeze the remains while making up her mind. And so she did.

"It was a rough weekend," Ohlde said.

"We felt so lost," Tebow said. "We didn't know how to make the decision."

But she knew she didn't want to toss the fetal tissue in the trash or down the toilet. Years ago, her mother had a miscarriage and said the hospital had disposed of the tissue, and Tebow never got that image out of her head.

She and her husband did some research and found that genetic testing of fetuses is not often conclusive, and they decided after several days of soul-searching to have the remains cremated and the ashes scattered over a family farm in Kansas. Ohlde began calling mortuaries and spoke to someone who asked an unexpected question.

"Do you have a death certificate?"

When he said no, Ohlde was instructed to call the L.A. County coroner's office. That sounded a bit odd, but perhaps not as odd as what the coroner's office told him to do: Call the Glendale police.

"So I called the Police Department," Ohlde said, "and good grief."

It sounded, he said, as if they were ready to rush to the apartment and "break down our door."

A dispatcher told him police needed to enter his apartment immediately. Ohlde, who was at work in San Bernardino, said he forbade them to enter until he arrived. What was the need? He then got into his car and sped toward Glendale.

"I was sobbing," Ohlde said, "and people from the Midwest are not prone to sobbing."