A woman in my family had a son with Autism, and he tore the marriage apart. Her husband just couldn’t handle it, and now she’s left alone with a VERY difficult to raise child. It’s hard to date for her because having kids scares a lot of men off – not to mention having kids with developmental disorders.

I knew a kid with down syndrome for a short while before he unfortunately passed away. He was convinced that he was Wolverine and that he lived in the X-Men universe. I had to reassure him that I was not part of The Brotherhood and would not hurt him. Nobody took this kid seriously, ever. Nobody really listened to what he had to say because to them, it was all nonsense. It’s not fair to a child to have to live in a world where very few people are actually interested in them. It didn’t help that his deadbeat mom didn’t want to take the time to raise him and dumped him on his grandparents who absolutely had no clue how to handle him – I think that’s ultimately why he retreated into his alternate reality.

I refuse to get any womb testing done because I am very squeamish about the whole needle through my bellybutton thing, and it can cause a premature birth (you pierce the amniotic sac, you are asking for trouble) – so I’ll never know for sure until my baby is born…but to be completely honest, I would personally put a baby with autism or down syndrome up for adoption. I would rather give my baby to a family who has lots of experience with children with mental handicaps than to risk failing as an amateur at it. You can call me a bad future parent, but sometimes looking out for your child’s best interest doesn’t always allow you to keep them near.

As for terminating a pregnancy over it, I’m on the fence, but leaning towards Andrew’s opinion. The human gene pool is pathetically weak because we use our medical technology to defy nature’s Survival of the Fittest rule. There is a reason why cancer, heart disease, and mental handicaps/disorders are INCREASING. We don’t let nature take its course with our kind. We forget that we too are animals on this earth, and if we don’t allow nature to weed out the weak, we are most likely doomed as a race. It is sad, yes, to see a child or a loved one die – but going against the way of things has a terrible price. I wouldn’t deal with it any better if I lost my child to a genetic disorder, but I would understand that if it wasn’t meant to happen, it wouldn’t have.

My aunt died from an aggressive form of breast cancer a few years ago. They knew she would not beat it. The doctors still put her through the painful chemotherapy, the stressful treatments, and she still had to deal with those agonizing nights where she was so hungry but knew if she ate, she would just throw it back up moments later.

What’s more cruel in that situation? Letting someone die the way they were supposed to, or increasing the length of their suffering?

I just don’t think it fair to state that a person should terminate or not. The statements made about parents having an “I can do it” mentality were hurtful words. I would want to try my best to raise my child with any medical condition, and DS doesn’t count as an off that list reason.

My first child, a son, was born with T21 last year. It was a complete surprise. After spending the first two months healing and morning the baby I expected, I finally pulled out of my depression and accepted the awesome kid I got. He is incredible. Milestones come a little slower than with a typical kid, but honestly, he’s a pretty normal kid. At 13 months, he signs and speaks words (around 15 total), crawls and pulls up, plays games me and and his dad and is a constant source of pure joy.

Prescreening is a joke. It’s a gamble no matter what your age. There are a lot worse things to be born with than Down’s syndrome. I feel lucky.

My experience as an over 35 mom is that DS is the death knell for women who wait too long. From the first book I read through the ultrasound experience all I heard was downs downs downs. It’s hammered into us that it’s a horrible thing to have a child with Downs and being an older mom you’re HIGH risk and need to always be afraid . But the pre-screening is shaky, at best and there’s a huge lack of education for expecting parents about the entire subject.

It is true to be cautious of such results, as they are only being tested with mice currently and may not transfer to humans.