I’ve always been a planner. So when I unexpectedly got pregnant at 39 after thinking that I couldn’t, it was a shock. While not in the plans, it was a plan detour my husband and I welcomed with enthusiasm.
Of course, being a planner I looked up all the things that could go wrong and braced myself for them. I knew I had complications and risk factors already but once I made it to my 10- week appointment, the mood shifted. My doctor didn’t seem concerned anymore. Everything looked great.
At that same appointment, we did the NIPT blood test to check for chromosomal abnormalities and I distinctly remember my doctor saying: “it”ll say negative, negative, negative, for all three trisomies and then it’ll show the sex so stop scrolling if you don’t want to find out”.
Being a planner, I looked up the trisomies in question and concluded that the highest probability one was Down Syndrome (1% for my age). Since I liked to plan, my husband and I did have a short discussion about what we would do in the event the test showed a high risk for T-21 and we both quickly concluded that we would continue with the pregnancy. We couldn’t imagine terminating for that.
Two weeks later, I was just finishing up at my job and getting ready for a two-week holiday break when a genetic counselor from Labcorp called me to say the fetus had a 92% chance of Down Syndrome.
My husband and I spent hours debating what we would do now that this wasn’t a hypothetical scenario. We dove into the stats. We had honest discussions about our ability to take care of a child with possibly severe needs as older parents. Who would take care of them when we are gone? Were we prepared to deal with the worst case scenario?
Ultimately, we made the heartbreaking decision to terminate. I knew it was the right thing for us, but that didn’t make it easier.
The next few weeks remain the worst weeks of my life. I confirmed the diagnosis with additional testing and naively thought I could get my procedure scheduled quickly after.
That was not the case. My OB advised me to have the procedure at a hospital as I had factors that put me at a higher risk of hemorrhaging and then apologized that she couldn’t personally perform the procedure as she is affiliated with a catholic hospital which does not perform abortions. I had to seek care elsewhere.
I waited two weeks for my abortion and actually ended up miscarrying the night before (I still needed a surgical abortion the next day). I was 14 weeks pregnant.
I’m not glad I experienced the most devastating event in my life so far but I have learned so much from it. I have always been pro-choice but this experience radicalized me. I want people to know that pregnancy is too complex to legislate. It’s easy to assume you’d know what you would do when faced with the unimaginable but the reality is that you don’t know until you’re there. Until it’s you. And it could be you. Nobody’s fireproof.