TIFU by saying I would abort a DS baby in front of my grandmother who lost a child with DS.

Submitted by imnotafurry_but t3_y8lfix in tifu

TIFU by telling my mom that if I ever had a child with Down syndrome, I would abort it, in front of my grandmother who recently lost a child who had DS.

So... yeah. I know many of you are against abortion. I also think an embryo and fetus have life, and having an abortion would be killing that life. However, I don't care what people think, I know me and my mental state, I would never be able to raise a child, or even birth a child I know will have disabilities. This scares me a lot. And it's actually because my grandmother had a child (my aunt) with DS and other heart conditions. I saw what my grandmother went through to raise her child. You can call her a strong mother, but all I saw was hell. The screaming, the yelling, the fighting, the crying, the visits to the hospitals, it was horrible.

I was having a discussion with my mom about pregnancies. She told me that when she was pregnant with me, the doctor offered her to have a test to determine if I had DS, but she refused it, because it didn't matter to her, she wanted to have me anyways. I was taken aback, because we often talked about the difficulties of mental illnesses and how prepared one must be before birthing a child. Also, knowing her younger sister had DS, and seeing her mother struggle, I thought she would take tests to at least know if I was going to be born different. I blurted out "Why didn't you get the test done? If it were me I would've taken the test to see if I'm going to have the child or not". My grandmother happened to walk by and listened to us. She seemed sad but kept walking past us. She recently lost her daughter, my aunt who had DS, and still cries at night her loss. I haven't apologized, because that was my opinion and I was talking to my mom. I still feel bad.

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notverrybright t1_it1ay2k wrote

I mean, you don’t have to apologize for having an opinion, but depending on how loud and where you were talking, it might not hurt to apologize (basically, for a lack of tact). Like if someone’s child with DS died, I’d probably avoid talking about aborting on the basis of expected DS, at least for awhile. Just seems like an easy, common sense thing to do.

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imnotafurry_but OP t1_itet1bq wrote

Yeah, I understand. We talked later. My aunt died back in 2019. It's still fresh for grandma though. The convo about pregnancies was brought up because in my family there's always someone having a baby every 2-3 years. My mom and I often talk about anything at any given time, we just forgot for a second my grandma was with us.

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Global_Monk_5778 t1_it1znu7 wrote

The test can rule out for DS but you could still end up with a child who has disabilities that can’t be picked up on any scan or test. Autism for example. They could develop a childhood illness like meningitis and develop a disability. If you truly don’t want to raise a child/adult with a disability then the only way to guarantee it is to not have children. Ever. It’s hard work having disabled children (I have 2) but it doesn’t mean you love them any less. You’ve probably just really upset her, so please talk to her, tell her how strong you think she is and tell her you just wouldn’t be strong enough to raise a child with additional needs. Tell her how amazing you think she is for being that mum. Apologise for any upset you caused - because while you didn’t mean to upset her you’d still apologise for hurting somebody by accident. And this is one of those times. She’s your grandma, why would you want her upset with you especially when she’s grieving? While her raising your aunt might have looked like hell to you I can assure you it was love, it was joyous, it was her world poured into raising her. Her daughter was her everything, the same as your mum is her everything, and she’s just lost her. It doesn’t matter that she had Downs. Your gran loved her. She raised her, she fought for her, she birthed her. And now she’s lost her. And you’ve hurt her. Go make it up to her.

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CosmicOwl99_ t1_it5g2zc wrote

Go talk to your granny dude wtf. Did you really need a bunch of strangers to encourage you to talk to your aging grandmother after you hurt her feelings?

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Significant-Tune-662 t1_it1n7t1 wrote

I think you should sit down with your grandmother and tell her exactly what you wrote here. 100% exactly what you wrote here.

You explained it with the right level of emotion and fact, while not being sappy or cold. I think your grandmother would appreciate it.

Once you’re done, tell her you love her and wouldn’t want to hurt her, and you want to know what she is thinking.

You don’t want to leave this unresolved, or you’ll feel bad long after she’s gone.

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-RIVAN- t1_it6gw7x wrote

go post this in r/AmItheAsshole and u gonna get the reactions u wanted. Else just go apologize man!! U having a opinion dosen't mean u need to hurt your grandma, and apologizing is not giving up your "choices!!"

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