Week Six...

As we entered the sixth week, we settled into a routine, such as it was. I would wake with Dominique and make sure she had crackers to ease the nausea, make her lunch and be sure that she had enough to snack on throughout the day so that she wouldn’t feel worse. As the morning sickness increased, I started looking more and more into possible remedies that wouldn’t hurt the baby. Anything with the slightest recommendation from another pregnant woman or either of our mothers was at my wife’s disposal.

This was also the week we decided to start telling our friends about the baby. Their reactions varied, and I have to say the majority of them were happy beyond belief on either side. There were a few however, who tiptoed around the question, “was it planned?”

This led me to ask the question, “Does it matter?” In retrospect, God had a plan that he was carefully preparing us for. Just because we couldn’t see with vision, does that automatically necessitate tragedy?

I became surprised at the number of tests at a woman’s disposal during her pregnancy that offer some insight into the chance the child might have a birth defect. It is always a chance, no test is conclusive, and there is nothing that anyone can do for the baby in the womb in most cases. It is almost as if doctors are running scared from the possibility that parents may sue them if their child has Down’s syndrome.

In reading about all of these tests, I wondered what the positive was. Do you worry more? Do bring risk to the baby?

It struck me that we have come closer to Nazi Germany then we would have ever wanted to. Imagine the Nazis eliminating the weak, those that were defective, and those that did not fit their idea of a “perfect society.” What is the difference between screening a human being when they get off a train and screening a human being in the womb? Has our society actually come to the point where we cannot tolerate what we consider to be “imperfection?” I shudder at the thought, a wave of defensive anger for my unborn child.