Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I don't know why - but I can very VERY easily separate myself and my family from what other people do -

Her story, and her reasoning, did not bother me AT ALL -

I'm not at all appalled or upset or sickened by what she did .........I think she did what she thought was best for her family.

And, I'm sorry, but her husband DOES get an opinion - and she SHOULD take taht opinion inot consideration - Especially b/c he wasn't 100% on board w/ having a second kid, and she 'convinced' him to do it .........

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I'm very very pro choice...and this story was very cold to me...she just seemed like a very cold woman in her writing etc...I actually know a woman that was dying to get pregnant and tried for years to get pregnant and finally with help when she got pregnant she was pregnant with triplets and she just couldn't do it...moentarily, space wise etc...she couldn't and she did selective reduction for one...honestly I don't know how I feel about it, but this woman just seemed cold and her husband saying "I dont' want twins" how old are you, it's not like you're going to a freaking store and stomping your feet bc you don't want something...

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by MetsGirl07

i was actually faced with Selective reduction myself

not many people knew, but i originally got pregnant after IVF with Triplets.
so the first time i went to my perinatologist, he automatically said this is not good reason being, baby B's egg split, and the one that split was much smaller. he said that we should think about reducing to 2.
my body could not physically handle it, especially because i have incompetent cervix on top of that.
now i would NEVER reduce twins to one...
but then when i was faced with triplets and baby C was alrleady not looking good.. i was going to reduce
however, god had other plans and baby C didn't make it by the next appt.
i hate saying this, but glald it happened that way, so i didnt have to go through that.
i was so distraught over that time.. it was awful, and to have 2 losses already it just really damaged me

but the point is.. some people i really feel that they don't have a choice.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I can't even put the words together- this women is all over the place and she clearly did not discuss this in-depth with her husband before going for fertility treatments. She struggles with the decisions- lists a millon reasons why she shouldn't do it and than does it anyway! It makes me so sad.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

just to add my opinon about the story.. (cause i didnt do that )

in her case, i actually did feel a little sick over it, i almost cried just thinking about it, it is horrible since they did do IVF and there is a BIG chance of multiples.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by monkeybride

Posted by MetsGirl07
.

I think your situation is SO different. You had health risks. Your doctor recommended it. This woman's own doctor wouldn't even do it. There was no medical reason, it was more the convenience factor.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by neener1211

Posted by monkeybride

Posted by MetsGirl07
.

I think your situation is SO different. You had health risks. Your doctor recommended it. This woman's own doctor wouldn't even do it. There was no medical reason, it was more the convenience factor.

Agreed-I think your situation was completely different.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Simply horrible...

For me, in a sense, it some how changes things the fact that it's twins. I can maybe, kinda, sorta, understand if it were higher order multiples (Quads etc)...

I have issues carrying 1 baby to term. Let alone 2. (I have a connective tissue disorder where my cervix essentially turns to mush) Ive lost 1 set of twins and carried 1 set to 35 weeks. Never, ever, did I not look at either of those pregnancies as anything less than a gift. My girls did not come under the best of circumstances either. I was young, single, and their father left the minute he found out abortion wasnt going to be an option. I felt that I was given a second chance some how and was bound and determined to get them here. Reduction was never an option.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I know someone who did it with 5 embryos. She had had IVF. She terminated 3. She kept a set of twins.

I persnally would not do it for "just" twins. But I can see someone doing it for 5+ baby pregnancy.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by CrankyPants

That story did nothing to make me understand what they went through.

I don't put my beliefs on other people and I feel every person needs to make their own choices and stand by them, but I can say without a doubt that I could never abort a baby simply because we only want 1 and not 2. I just couldn't and if I am being totally honest, that story made me sick.

I feel compassion for them because they are human beings, but the story made me nauseous and I cannot believe they went through with it-though I am not naive enough to think there aren't other people out there who have made the same choice in the same situation.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I am a twin, an unexpected twin, My mother didn't know there were 2 of us until I arrived. SURPRISE! I wonder what they would have done in a situation like that.....

This story mad me very sad. I think it's one thing to choose selective reduction to increase the chances of a healthy pregnancy for other babies, but to get 2 and just decide that one is all they wanted..... it turned my stomach. I don't know if I could look at the child I kept, with out feeling so guilty that that child could have just as easily not have been there if I chose differently.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by MetsGirl07

just to add my opinon about the story.. (cause i didnt do that )

in her case, i actually did feel a little sick over it, i almost cried just thinking about it, it is horrible since they did do IVF and there is a BIG chance of multiples.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I'm pro-choice, and feel very strongly about a woman's right to choose - whether to reduce for health reasons, her own reasons or for her family's sake.

I do think the husband was portrayed in a much harsher light. Sounds as if there is a lot of resentment on her end over his feelings.

Even being a twin - who was born to a couple who absolutely struggled financially & emotionally with 3 kids at the age of 21, I still think to each, his (or her) own.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

and another thing that really got to me in her story was that she actually picked the sex of the baby she wanted.
i am so disturbed by that for some reason

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

oh boy.

I am not reading this article.

I am pro choice b/c I feel it is right. that doesn't mean I agree with the choices people make.

I don't even want to know the thought process.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I can't stop thinking about this...and for me now I think the part that really bothers me is that she say's who knows if we had them naturally if things would have been different(or something along those lines)...why would that make things different?

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by monkeybride

Posted by MetsGirl07

i was actually faced with Selective reduction myself

not many people knew, but i originally got pregnant after IVF with Triplets.
so the first time i went to my perinatologist, he automatically said this is not good reason being, baby B's egg split, and the one that split was much smaller. he said that we should think about reducing to 2.
my body could not physically handle it, especially because i have incompetent cervix on top of that.
now i would NEVER reduce twins to one...
but then when i was faced with triplets and baby C was alrleady not looking good.. i was going to reduce
however, god had other plans and baby C didn't make it by the next appt.
i hate saying this, but glald it happened that way, so i didnt have to go through that.
i was so distraught over that time.. it was awful, and to have 2 losses already it just really damaged me

but the point is.. some people i really feel that they don't have a choice.

I think your situation is SO different. You had health risks. Your doctor recommended it. This woman's own doctor wouldn't even do it. There was no medical reason, it was more the convenience factor.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I don't know I definitely got the sense that she struggled with the decision. I also think the husband is portrayed MUCH worse than the author, but I honestly feel like DHs can be way more "clinical" about this kind of thing, as they will never really know the bond that takes hold of some moms to be from the instant they learn they are pregnant.
It's a very sad article and a tough situation all around. As a mom of advanced maternal age, I can honestly see how the thought of twins at 43 might be just "too much" for some people - although she didn't really list that as one of her reasons for considering the SR.

The thing is I can't really call myself "pro-choice" if I'm going to judge and moan about someone USING that choice, kwim? People do what they feel they can/must do for their own situations, and while I certainly have an OPINION on it, I think it was a hard hard choice to make.

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by MetsGirl07

and another thing that really got to me in her story was that she actually picked the sex of the baby she wanted.
i am so disturbed by that for some reason

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Posted by colette

Posted by MetsGirl07

and another thing that really got to me in her story was that she actually picked the sex of the baby she wanted.
i am so disturbed by that for some reason

D THIS really bothered me. I guess because it was "offered" she felt like she had to choose one THAT decision would haunt me forever...

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

This story left me with a knot in my stomach. Like most of the previous posters, I am pro-choice but after having DS I don't think I could personally ever go through with an abortion.

To selectively reduce (in this specific case where there was no medical reason) just seems unfathomable to me. How can you possibly choose? How would you live with yourself, looking at the one child that was born knowing he/she had a twin that you chose to terminate? The way she chose the gender of the surviving child really disturbed me for some reason.

I feel her reasons were very selfish, I believe her husband was not ready for a second child and she should have probably waited for him to be on board 100% before trying IVF.

Overall, this story made me so sad and the pic of the baby hugging the 'ghost' of the twin made me want to

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

Re: One Woman's Story on Selective Reduction

I am pro-choice myself, but do not agree with this woman's choice at all.
I think it was completely selfish. She did fertility treatments, and anyone doing fertility treatments knows there is a chance for multiples.
She KNEW this, but instead of doing the 1 embryo transfer like her dr. suggested, she did an IUI with four follicles. Yes, the chances were slim, but they were still there.
If she didn't want twins, then she shouldn't have done the procedure (the IUI). Or she could have done unmedicated IUI.
This wasn't an accident, and there was no danger to either the mother or the babies. This was purely a case of "I don't want two."
Maybe I am more sensitive to it because I have twins - through the same procedure. I KNEW going into it that it was a possibility, and we prepared ourselves for that.