I am so shattered by this YouTuber and his wife for aborting their disabled baby, not only because it’s evil incarnate, but because I’ve been in a similar position with my daughter Sage. I’ve gotten bad news. I’ve sat with it, ruminated on it, and lost sleep over it, but ending her life never crossed my mind. And thank God, because that bad news was wrong. Medical testing can be deeply flawed.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with Sage, her measurements reflected that her head had stopped growing, and her brain. I was told I still had “options” at 20 weeks, to which I gave a firm Fk you to. Within a week, her measurements were perfectly normal, the error the previous week was the result of how she had been positioned that day.
At 34 weeks, I developed oligohydramnios (low amniotic fluid). This went undiagnosed for a month despite my insistence that something wasn’t right. Finally, a doctor caught it and I was sent to be induced immediately (July 2).
I was given an antibiotic immediately, as a precaution for the oligohydramnios, however, it sent me into anaphylaxis. The Benadryl they gave me to save our lives did, but it caused hallucinations.
I was monitored overnight and induced the following morning. Sage arrived healthy and happy and perfect, she however had a tilt in her neck— A 30° rotation of C1 on C2, a mild shift in her jaw and the plates in her head, the result of her position and the low fluid going undiagnosed for as long as it did. This would result in 8 years of physical therapy at Shriners hospital, a baby helmet, and several other ongoing interventions to this day.
Today, she is almost 16, happy, beautiful, brilliant, kind, funny, and an absolute blessing. She is the top of her class, an animal whisperer, and a talented singer. She loves history and wants to be a psychologist or a vet.
Whatever is in the heart of a mother who would conditionally love her child, who would place her own safety above her child’s, and who would see her child as anything less than perfect, is not in my heart, and I thank God for my beautiful children and an unburdened soul.