Wednesday 22 February 2012

Termination For Medical Reasons (TFMR)

What is it? Well, it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. You decide to end your pregnancy because your baby is suffering from a medical condition so sufficiently horrendous that you think they would be better off dead than alive....that is if they would even make it out of you alive in the first place.

You can elect to do this at any stage of your pregnancy but if it's after 24 weeks, the hospital will only allow it if two medical consultants consent to it too. I was 26 weeks pregnant when we were told there was a problem with William's heart and that we had a decision to make. Before you even start researching the medical condition which has decided to afflict your baby, you know the outcome for the little mite isn't going to be good when they tell you as they told me....

"I would support you in your decision if you choose to bring this pregnancy to an end and I know there are several other people in this hospital who would also do so".

If you do decide to end your pregnancy the methods of doing so also differ depending on how far along you are. At 28 weeks (as I then was) the process of ending your pregnancy is two fold. It isn't pleasant but it's not something you can really sugar coat (although I will try) so if you don't think you are going to like reading about this bit you may want to skip onto the next post:

Sonographer man sticks a needle into your tummy and into your baby. The baby gets a hit of valium so he feels super dooper relaxed and stops kicking the hell out of you. Feeling all chilled and nice and cozy in your tummy the baby snuggles down for his final Mummy Tummy Nap. Whilst off in baby dream land the sonographer man gives your baby another injection right into his heart to send him to Baby Heaven.

I don't like to think too much about what was in that last syringe as the reality of allowing someone to inject that into your baby is just too horrific.  It's made worse by the fact that the medical professionals all refer to that bit as "feoticide" which is a term I loathe and which reminds me of homicide and murder.  Instead, I like to think of this last injection as a huge dose of love mixture from me and my husband and something akin to Red Bull. We loved William so much that rather than him suffer a minute of pain we gave him some Red Bull to give him wings.

The second stage is relatively simple in comparison. You take a tablet to soften your cervix and two days later go into hospital to be induced and give birth. The labour itself is like the birth of any living baby (so I'm told) although you haven't got all of those happy pain suppressing natural endorphins flying around your body and so it tends to hurt like hell once it all gets going. On the up side, most midwives don't want you to be in an physical pain given you are already suffering enough so they will pretty much offer you every drug they have available to them the minute you start to feel anything.

When we first had to consider ending the pregnancy I thought this process was so horrific that I didn't think I would be able to get through it. Even if it meant William being born alive and having a lifetime of suffering. I just didn't think I was strong enough and couldn't handle the pain of losing a baby.  Ultimately, however, I decided that I would feel more pain and guilt watching him suffer from the minute he was born and that my reasons for continuing with the pregnancy could not simply be that I was too much of a coward to do what might be the right thing for our baby.

Once the decision was made, I didn't want to know anything about William (I can't believe I even thought that now), didn't want to know the sex (we didn't know he was a boy at this stage) and I wanted to be knocked out, for them to take him out of me and for me to wake up, bump-less. I certainly didn't want to give birth to him or to see him or hold him. I rang every private hospital and asked if I could pay for a c-section as the NHS wouldn't allow it. They all said no.

I talked to a counsellor and they said the process was there for a reason. That I wouldn't come to terms with it if I went to sleep with a bump and woke up without one. I thought "what does she know" and that the medical profession were cruel, unbelievably cruel, for making women go through this process when they were losing their baby.

In hindsight, I can see the counsellor was right. It was hard, so so hard but I am glad I went through it. William went to Baby Heaven straight from my tummy and went to sleep when he was with me, all warm and safe. His birth was really really peaceful and gentle and as a result, no harm came to his tiny little body. It also gave my husband and I the chance to see just how beautiful and perfect he was and to hold him and say goodbye properly.  I can now say, without a shadow of a doubt, that holding him in my arms was one of the highlights of my life, no matter how sad the circumstances, and I wouldn't give that up for the world.

Note to William: Mummy may have allowed you to get your first hit of drugs when you were with her but getting high, even with a parent, is a big no no. Do not even think about it in Baby Heaven...even if its someone disguised as Jesus telling you to drink the special wine and eat his magic bread. Just. Say. No.



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