Dave,
I think we need to agree to disagree on this one.
I have a girlfriend that is very healthy as her husband is. They have had 3 mis-carraiges.
The last one, I brought her to the hospital, as her husband was a couple hours away. I laid on the bed with my arms around her crying with her until her husband could get there. I know the heart break it can bring.
This same girlfriend has 2 very healthy kids from a previous marraige.
Ask a parent with AS if given the choice they would not have their kids had they known that they had AS, and their kids had a chance of getting it.
I think that you will find most will state that they would of still had their children, as the good far out weighs the bad.
There are a lot of parents that have the disease that still opt to have children, and go to great lengths to make sure that they can have them. That speaks in volumes.
The up side of that is that you know what to look for, and get early treatment. With the new drugs out there today, they can live a perfectly normal life. Eric does now.
I also understand that we don't know what the Enbrel he was on, and now the Remicade will do to him in 20 years.
If we find that he can not have kids because of it, then we will deal with that then. At least he has a life now that he can do what ever he wants to do with no limitations.
I know that there are people out there that dont want kids that are healthy as horses, but I dont think that you should rob yourself of the experience of parenthood just because your child
might get a disease. That same child
might also be the one to find a cure for the disease.
As I said when I started this book...this is something that we need to agree to disagree on.
Take care,
Lori
