TORMENT: Justyna and Rafal Sliwa buried, they had believed, their child in Poland (top), with relatives in attendance. But the baby’s ID is now in doubt. (Paul Martinka)
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A grieving Brooklyn couple who buried their stillborn child in their native Poland received more heart-wrenching news weeks later — the baby the city Medical Examiner’s Office gave them was not their infant.
Justyna and Rafal Sliwa have no idea whose baby they prayed and cried over — and who they now need to exhume and return to the United States.
“Words can’t express how I feel, to be honest,” the 22-year-old mom told The Post yesterday. “It’s devastating. Losing a child and then finding this out — it’s horrible.”
Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the ME’s office, called it a “tragic, unfortunate error we have to make right.”
“The city will be taking all steps we can to make sure the correct baby is buried in the correct place,” she said.
She said her office is investigating how the mix-up happened but noted that “the babies involved have strikingly similar names” and that her office contacted both families “as soon as the error was discovered.”
She refused to identify the second family.
The Sliwas’ nightmare ordeal began May 29, when the five-months-pregnant Justyna went to Woodhull Hospital for a prenatal exam and doctors couldn’t find a heartbeat, indicating that the baby was dead.
The mom was sent to Bellevue Hospital, where a week later, doctors induced delivery. They asked her what she wanted done with the remains. The Roman Catholic woman said she wanted them sent to her family’s burial plot in her native Poland. She also signed papers saying she’d like a copy of the baby’s footprints and to be told its gender.
She never got the prints and “they still haven’t told us” whether the infant was a boy or girl, she said.
Justyna and Rafal named the baby Angel and held a memorial service for the child in Brooklyn on June 16. The funeral home then sent the remains on to the couple’s hometown of Lomza, which is about 90 miles northeast of Warsaw. A small funeral service was held there June 19.
Justyna was in too much physical pain to go, but she designed a heart-shaped monument for the grave, which said in part, “Before you were ever here with us, before we got to meet you, you walked away to heaven.”
The parents spent weeks grieving when Justyna got a message asking her to call the ME’s office on Friday, July 6. They soon were told the horrible news: Angel was still there.
“I just started crying,” she said.
The family has now hired lawyer Susan Karten and have filed a $5 million notice of claim, the first step in filing a lawsuit.
She’s calling for an independent investigation into the incident and into the ME’s office.
Karten noted that the ME’s office had recently come under fire for four incidents where it had held onto brains without families’ knowledge after an autopsy.
“There have to be changes,” Karten said. “It’s a despicable situation.”
Justyna said she just wants “to get my baby home where it’s supposed to be, and that baby home with it’s parents. It’s heartbreaking. It kills.”