Ending a pregnancy for fetal abnormality

Gosh, there's a myriad of things, I mean there are so many things, so many issues that are just huge. You're worried about depression for, for yourself, but for them. You're worried that the, in our instance we had a little boy that needed looking after, you feel nervous that his care is not going to be as good as it should be, or could be. Because there you are as parents, both of you very sombre, very sad, very determined to try and make a baby, so your whole life is taken over by this, you know, need to have a little sibling but, and you forget how to enjoy the first child. 

So you, I was worried for her, from that point of view, and I know that that was an issue for a while, but she did fantastically well. But it is a horrible thing, your body is changing, you're hormonally in a dreadful state, physically you're in a bad state. I suppose I just wanted to sort of put sticking plaster over all the leaks really and try and, I know that my effort with my son went two-fold. I sort of, did sort of step in and really take over a lot more of the day-to-day sort of pastoral care of him, and that sort of gave her a relief I think to sort of regroup and really get her strength back. So I think that's the best thing I could have done for her really, let her know that he was alright.
 

The termination my role I said before that there were two phases. The one was the 4-week period of making the decision and there it was both of us just having to decide what to do. And but sometimes feeling of being a punch bag, because you know there was a sort of feeling of why is this happening to us and the sort of irrationality 'why me?' that kicks in. And yes to some extent you do become a bit of a punch bag, but in other ways, [what's needed is] just sort of general support of something that we've got to do together. 

Yeah, apart from holding your partner's hand on the day you do feel powerless and impotent, it's a terrible thing and, if you're a bloke it's even more terrible [laughs] I suppose - do you know what I mean? You always like to have some sort of control over a situation. And I think it's important that you know, maybe people should be more informed or fathers should be more informed about what's going to happen on that day, and you know how best they could help their wives, or partners you know.

It is you know, with hindsight, it is all geared around the woman, whatever reasons I mean, you, a lot of single mums around, and whatever, you can see the reasons why. I don't know whether counselling at the time would be good for me - I don't think it would have been - I don't think I wanted to do anything about, you know, with those emotions then. 

There's not until 6 months, a year later, then it sort of starts, I don't know, sinking in a bit more. Maybe you know you can. but sometimes I don't know what the benefit of counselling is. It works for some people, it does work for some people, for others it causes more problems you know.
 

I think the right thing to do for whatever person, it's going to depend on the woman anyway and how they're dealing with what's happening to them and to the couple and the extended family.  

My wife found it very, very useful writing down everything in her, on the computer - I'd find her tapping away at the computer, I'm like, 'What are you doing?'. 'I'm just updating my diary'. So she literally wrote a diary of the pregnancy.  

What I found useful and what I also found very upsetting, was reading what she'd written, because she was able to get down a lot more in a, in a you know, in a file on a computer than she could convey to me without, without breaking down in tears all the time. So that, that document was very, very helpful for me. As I say it was very upsetting as well because she was saying things in there, where I was thinking, 'Well I should have known that', or 'I could have dealt with that better'. So it was, it was upsetting because I, you know, I knew maybe I hadn't been there when she needed me or whatever.  

But just listening a lot of the time, but as couple we were talking about it a lot as well, whilst trying to have a fairly normal family life for our little boy, so it was difficult. I know that I was putting on a very brave face. And once, once we'd gone through the termination, probably, well a few days after that, that's when it all came out for me. I remember sitting here and it just went, that's when I just let go. A probably realised then how much of a brave face I'd been putting on it. 

Do you recommend doing that 'putting on a brave face', is that something you probably have to do to get through it?

You have to put on a brave face to get through some of, you know, you need to get, because life does go on. And as much as the situation we were in was sort of, it never really took over our life, but it, I can see how for some people it might just take over your life completely. But we still had a little boy to look after, we still had friends that wanted to see us, we still had responsibilities at work and responsibilities outside of work, and you've still got to get on with those things, so yeah the, the brave face is necessary. And I think as a man you're more expected to put on that brave face and to be strong and to be there, but sometimes it's bloody difficult, really was.
 

Well, I would say it's tough but... it's possible to get through it, but it is a very very tough time, and there's no way of making it any easier, other than, as you say, the passage of time is the only thing that can make a difference. We're fortunate that we're in a position where we can consider having another child afterwards, and I think that does make a big difference. Because our baby's problem wasn't a genetic one, we were reasonably happy with the idea that, that it wasn't going to be something that would necessarily happen again, so we were happy to go ahead with another pregnancy and very glad that we did.
 

Relationship-wise we're still very close, and we're still as strong as we ever were. We were very close anyway as a couple, we love each other dearly, and I don't think that's really changed. We're both very supportive of each other, and probably, I mean probably more so now because we've both been through this and we have that extra bond that no one else has. I don't think it's changed it that much, certainly not for the worse.