Interview 23- Ending a pregnancy for fetal abnormality
She has 3 children (1st, 3rd and 4th pregnancies), and ended 1 pregnancy. 2nd pregnancy - everything seemed fine until 20-week scan which found heart defects. Specialist cardiac scan identified hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Pregnancy ended by induction at 21 weeks. Parents agreed to post mortem. Since then she has had two children.
Pregnancy ended in 1999. No. of children at time of interview - 3 + [1]. Ages of other children - 7, 4, and 3. Occupations - Mother - nursery teacher, Father - network manager. Marital status - Married. Ethnic background - White British.
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She felt uncomfortable that she had to have sole responsibility for signing the consent form to end the pregnancy, because it had been a joint decision between herself and her husband.
She felt uncomfortable that she had to have sole responsibility for signing the consent form to end the pregnancy, because it had been a joint decision between herself and her husband.
The other thing that I found really difficult - and I still do - is that you have to sign a consent form to have, to end a pregnancy. And I had to sign my baby's consent form, and my husband didn't. And I feel like sometimes it's just me. I know it was a joint decision but I find, I found that quite difficult to handle. And since ending the pregnancy my son's had surgery, and I made sure it was my husband's signature that was on it, because I found with it felt like a tremendous responsibility. It felt like it was all mine, and yet I knew it was my husband's as well. It was a silly thing, but perhaps symbolic that I found quite difficult at the time.