Did it ever cross your mind just not to have any screening at all this time round, or didn't it make you feel that way?
No, no, because I wouldn't want to bring a disabled child up. And not just - I feel probably a bit selfish saying it - I'm young and I couldn't see myself pushing a wheelchair or having to have an adapted house or things like that, and I've got plenty of years left in me to try again.
So I would want to know, always want to know if there was going to be something wrong. And not only that, for the child as well, you know. It's a cruel enough world without having a disability, than having an obvious disability.
And so your experience has made you feel more strongly if anything?
Yeah, we've thought more about disabilities this time and we've thought about, you know, everywhere we look now we see disabled children, whereas we didn't before. And we'll see people with a disabled child, an older disabled child, and then a young baby that was totally normal, and we'll just look at each other and think, you know, that could be us, you know, pushing that child round.
And no matter what, you know, you think about their, their lives and they're happy, but it's hard work for both the child and the parents. So, no, we wouldn't, we'd want to do, to make the same decision again.
OK, so looking back over it all, what would you say to other people going through the kind of uncertainties that you've been through?
A lot of people I know who are pregnant, it's brought it home to them the reality of abnormalities and probably scared them a little bit. Whereas I didn't know many people when I were pregnant the first time who'd had abnormalities. I weren't scared and it was such a happy time being pregnant that it, you know, it feels strange now, a bit upsetting really, that people go round rubbing their bumps where I've not got that, that opportunity any more.
I'm always going to be worried and pregnancy's not going to be a happy time for me, which is, it's not nice, you know, when you see other people that are so happy and they're unaware of abnormalities.
I wouldn't like to push it in people's faces because it would take away that happy time for them, but if people were going through, you know, the sort of things that we went through, I'd just advise them to look at every single angle and get more advice before you make your decision, to ring about the support groups for different abnormalities, whatever abnormality you're going through, and ask them the complications of bringing a child up with an abnormality or terminating the baby, and what choices you do have. |
