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Mar. 27th, 2019 03:01 pm This may be triggering for any reader who has a disability, or birth defect, or is close to this issue or has strong feelings about it. Something's bugging me, and usually what happens is I'm not sure if it's bugging me, because I tend to have that immediate reaction and then feel like it was unjustified. So one of my facebook groups is a bunch of women who I've mostly been talking to since I was pregnant, or at least when my son was a baby. Some have come and gone but I know them all pretty well.
One just found out she is pregnant. She'd been posting about how she wanted another one and so I'm really happy for her but then she said "we're not telling everyone until the neural tube has closed" and she went on to say they are really hoping for a healthy baby. There's this trend of women saying "We're not telling everyone until we know it's healthy." Like, the assumption when someone says that is, if she finds out the baby has a birth defect, we're going to 'weigh our options'". (ie consider abortion)
It bothers me because I know that babies with birth defects are more likely to be aborted. And I kind of understand, it's a huge responsibility. But I really don't think you should be having children if you're not prepared for something outside the norm. Like you can't expect your baby to come out with no problems, unforeseeable or not. Whether you can tell it on an ultrasound or not, your child is probably going to encounter something you didn't expect. I can understand, I guess, if the baby won't survive. You'd be hesitant to tell everyone early in case that happens and then you have to tell everyone the bad news. But please don't say "we're waiting until we know the baby's healthy." Because even if they're not healthy, you and that baby deserve to tell everyone you know about the pregnancy. A life is to be celebrated. Hiding a pregnancy until a certain time is just another way we don't talk about things like special needs and other concerns we have while we're pregnant. We're supposed to be nothing but happy, and we have to hide pregnancy until we're sure we can be happy about it. It just troubles me, the way we as a society treat it.
One just found out she is pregnant. She'd been posting about how she wanted another one and so I'm really happy for her but then she said "we're not telling everyone until the neural tube has closed" and she went on to say they are really hoping for a healthy baby. There's this trend of women saying "We're not telling everyone until we know it's healthy." Like, the assumption when someone says that is, if she finds out the baby has a birth defect, we're going to 'weigh our options'". (ie consider abortion)
It bothers me because I know that babies with birth defects are more likely to be aborted. And I kind of understand, it's a huge responsibility. But I really don't think you should be having children if you're not prepared for something outside the norm. Like you can't expect your baby to come out with no problems, unforeseeable or not. Whether you can tell it on an ultrasound or not, your child is probably going to encounter something you didn't expect. I can understand, I guess, if the baby won't survive. You'd be hesitant to tell everyone early in case that happens and then you have to tell everyone the bad news. But please don't say "we're waiting until we know the baby's healthy." Because even if they're not healthy, you and that baby deserve to tell everyone you know about the pregnancy. A life is to be celebrated. Hiding a pregnancy until a certain time is just another way we don't talk about things like special needs and other concerns we have while we're pregnant. We're supposed to be nothing but happy, and we have to hide pregnancy until we're sure we can be happy about it. It just troubles me, the way we as a society treat it.
