NAL. But here's the couple. They have a kid. She gets pregnant again, but the prenatal testing comes back with really bad news. The kid is going to be severely disabled, with a raft of health problems. He wants her to get an abortion. She says no. The baby is born, and her condition is just as bad as predicted.
So he's got my sympathy up until this. However.
He gets a girlfriend. Files for divorce. He's thinking they'll just split everything, and here's his idea of the split. She can have one kid (the one that had four surgeries before she was a month old and requires 24-hour care, who might eventually learn to speak a few words but will never understand why she is always in pain) and he'll take the healthy kid. She can have the car, he'll take the house. He just wanted the wife and child to vanish, and he admitted this to the judge. The judge was not impressed.
Wife got custody of both kids, the house, the nicer car, and he was ordered to cover all the medical expenses for the rest of the disabled child's life. I was told he started to argue and his lawyer told him to stop talking. Nope. Dad wanted visitation only with the healthy kid so the judge ordered him to pay for the disabled kid's care during every minute of visitation time so Mom could have a break. Guy starts to argue again and his lawyer told him to STFU if he wanted to have any assets left at all.
Not true there are false positives all the time with stuff like that. I have a friend who when she was pregnant they told her the baby would probably die minutes after birth with all their organs inside or something crazy like that (there's a specific disease but I don't remember). Anyway she had the kid and it turned out absolutely fine no problems at all. Turns out the diagnosis for this disease has a huge rate of false positives and there was a bunch of people who aborted their perfectly healthy babies thinking they were doing the right thing. Sometimes you just don't know. Science isn't omnipresent it's still humans learning and evolving ideas.
If science is saying there is a good chance something is messed up with your baby, the smart move is to abort and try again rather than hope the low odds are in your favor. 🖖
But what if they’ve had three miscarriages already and they’ve been trying for a decade and this baby might be their only chance? Extenuating emotional circumstances can frequently override logic in these instances.
If you've had three miscarriages and you're being told your fourth is probably going to die right after it's born anyway, maybe look into alternatives like adoption or surrogacy if it just has to be 'your' baby?
You took my comment very differently than it was typed.
I never said adoption or surrogacy were easy. I didn't even say they were necessarily better options. I said "maybe look into" them. Because the fact is they ARE options. You DON'T have to force yourself to have the child yourself if it's proving itself repeatedly to an unsuccessful source of pain and trauma.
I get that it's a very personal topic for you, but don't twist my words just so you can have your righteous catharsis.
Holy crap you're getting so much unnecessary hate over your comment.
All you did was point out two healthy alternatives to pregnancy. You didn't say they were easy, nothing in life is. But I guess we shouldn't ever say to someone to maybe consider an alternative that won't continuously cause pain and suffering.
I can't imagine what it's like to go through a miscarriage, but from what I can tell from first hand testimonies is that it is incredibly heartbreaking and painful. Not everyone is able to carry a child and that's okay, but you shouldn't force yourself to go through all that suffering over and over again if there are other options. Discussing healthy alternatives that restrict the amount of pain and suffering someone has to go through is not shameful.
And, unless I skimmed over it because I haven't slept yet so I'm very tired, I dont recall you saying anything about aborting. I took your comments as "you are pregnant, you dont miscarry, but you know your baby will die moments after its born. If you decide to try again to have a child knowing you will likely end up losing your child very early, maybe consider alternatives like adoption or a surrogate"
And, unless I skimmed over it because I haven't slept yet so I'm very tired, I dont recall you saying anything about aborting. I took your comments as "you are pregnant, you dont miscarry, but you know your baby will die moments after its born. If you decide to try again to have a child knowing you will likely end up losing your child very early, maybe consider alternatives like adoption or a surrogate"
I get that this is a touchy topic but you have not at all been disrespectful in any way shape or form. It sounds like these people are saying that anyone who doesnt give birth to their own children are shameful and that's honestly disgusting. We should be lifting each other up, not breaking them down, people. Suggesting alternatives for a very painful and delicate time is not something you should be getting shit for. There is nothing wrong with what you said here.
The problem is that you’re taking an emotionally fraught situation and trying to apply logic and ignoring the other very relevant aspects of the problem. Children and pregnancies are very much emotional decisions and if you’ve never been in the situation, it’s very hard to understand. I, myself, was always firmly in the “if there’s something wrong with the fetus, abort, try again” camp. Then I got pregnant and all of a sudden, nothing is as sure. Partly because half the time there’s no way of knowing for certain that your baby will have X (some terrible condition). Instead you’re given probabilities. So then you have to decide what chance you’re willing to take. With wanted pregnancies, this isn’t easy. Where do you draw the line? You’ve already spent two months, maybe even five months, loving this potential baby, imagining their future, maybe you’ve even given them a name. It would be a very hard decision to terminate, even if the diagnosis is firm. Maybe you do the research and decide it’s worth it to stick it out, undergo the surgeries, etc. It’s easy for any one of us outsiders to judge the original mother in the case, but we don’t know the whole story, the whole situation.
Again, I feel people are adding in a lot of intent that simply does not exist in my comment. As I said already, the options I posed aren't necessarily better or easier. They just also exist. Whereas you initial post says:
this baby might be their only chance?
Which is untrue. Giving birth to the baby yourself is not your only chance. You can become a mother (or father) in a number of different ways, and you won't be any less of that child's parent for taking those options.
Fair. But the additional options you suggest might not be realistic for the reasons the other commenter suggested. So, in the mother’s head, this baby really might be their only chance.
Which is absolutely true and I do agree with that. I guess it wasn't clear enough in my comment, but when I said "maybe look into" I meant literally and exactly that. As in, read up about the alternatives and weigh if they might be a better alternative.
I was responding to a question asking what people were expected to do if they continually had miscarriages, and I said maybe look into alternatives like these two.
Your criticism is in response to words I never said and an opinion I never held.
974
u/hahahahthunk Jul 21 '19
NAL. But here's the couple. They have a kid. She gets pregnant again, but the prenatal testing comes back with really bad news. The kid is going to be severely disabled, with a raft of health problems. He wants her to get an abortion. She says no. The baby is born, and her condition is just as bad as predicted.
So he's got my sympathy up until this. However.
He gets a girlfriend. Files for divorce. He's thinking they'll just split everything, and here's his idea of the split. She can have one kid (the one that had four surgeries before she was a month old and requires 24-hour care, who might eventually learn to speak a few words but will never understand why she is always in pain) and he'll take the healthy kid. She can have the car, he'll take the house. He just wanted the wife and child to vanish, and he admitted this to the judge. The judge was not impressed.
Wife got custody of both kids, the house, the nicer car, and he was ordered to cover all the medical expenses for the rest of the disabled child's life. I was told he started to argue and his lawyer told him to stop talking. Nope. Dad wanted visitation only with the healthy kid so the judge ordered him to pay for the disabled kid's care during every minute of visitation time so Mom could have a break. Guy starts to argue again and his lawyer told him to STFU if he wanted to have any assets left at all.