Both working in the Health Service we kind of decided that you're aware of tests and things being done and actually the pointlessness of it, sometimes, if you're not going to act on the results. And that was the main, my main sort of reason for not having them really, or our reason for not having them, was that we'd probably, we wouldn't do anything with the results if we did find there was something wrong.
And so it just seemed that it would cause extra stress. And we'd both worked with people with, adults and children with mainly Down's, and just realised there was such a spectrum, a broad spectrum of problems that can be associated with it that it just isn't such a simple decision as the baby's got Down's or, you know, any other problem.
And it, I guess we both thought screening could only tell you so much and it wouldn't have been enough for us to make a decision to terminate, particularly at the point where if we'd found out there was something wrong.
By that point I guess it would have been, for me, fairly late on, you know, sort of twelve, thirteen weeks, I guess if you're looking at amniocentesis and that sort of thing, or later. And that would have been just a bit too late for - you know, you're kind of feeling very pregnant and even coming to the point where you know, a bit later that you're feeling the baby move around.
So if there were a screening test that, say, could pick up problems at six weeks, would you feel differently about that?
Possibly. I think it would have altered our decision in a way, being as neither of us have sort of religious or moral objections to termination. But having said that, the longer it gets on in a planned pregnancy then yes, I would feel a lot less comfortable with it.
So if you'd known at six weeks it may have influenced our decision. But having said that, even then, another reason for us not wanting screening was just to want to have, to go through pregnancy feeling and enjoying it, and not feeling that there may be something wrong and not fully knowing it. I don't know, it's just me. |
