Pregnant at 38 and irrational fear of profound disabilities

[namechangenelly1]

I feel horrible even saying this.

I'm pregnant with my first and a wave of absolute terror came over me last week that has sent me in to a spiral and I can't shake it off.

Being 38 carries a lot of risk for disabilities and I'm not sure if I could cope with a child, and subsequently an adult, who was profoundly affected by a disability. Particularly genetic disorders that make people violent, unable to toilet by themselves, unable to communicate or ever live without constant care. My age increases this possibility apparently, particularly with profound autism and learning disability.

Please don't think I'm in any way saying disabled people shouldn't exist, I'm just not sure how to get out of this thought process and see the rationale.

I'm not really sure what I want from this thread, but I needed to get it out.

Its not enough to say "the risk of disability goes up by X amount if you are older". That can lead to some very scary sounding statistics but actually misrepresent the real level of risk. E.g. if the probability of winning some lottery goes up from 0.01% to 0.05% that means you are 5 times more likely to win. Which sounds like a lot. But you are still really not likely to win. "an increase in probability of 500%" is a good headline though.
Likewise, if a rare condition becomes more likely the older a mother gets you will hear scary statistics like "twice as likely", "50% more likely". In fact, the rarer the condition to start with the bigger and more dramatic the changes can appear. but a 50% increase from 0.01 to 0.015 is not actually big in real terms. So saying the risk of something like severe learning disabilities is higher for older mothers is not the same as saying it is likely.

As others have said though, this sounds more like anxiety so don't feel stupid for being worried. I had my babies in my 20s and stressed a lot about everything that could go wrong. Its normal to worry but that doesn't mean you are right to.