Me and my partner have minor/ moderate learning disabilities. Should we have children?

[Benny91]

As I feel it wouldn’t be right to have any?

Do you know anyone with a learning disability that has children? As I find it quite rare with our disabilities to have children!

We are both 33

What are your thoughts OP? You haven’t responded to any of the comments.

I’ve not heard of that condition so wouldn’t know how that impacts your partner.
If you both manage to work and maintain a home then that’s more than plenty of people who go on to have kids. However having children is a whole other ball game. The stress and upheaval that comes with being a parent is a challenge for most people without additional needs. Yes it can be wonderful and rewarding and but it is so so hard at times .
I think you both really need some professional counselling to decide if it’s something you could cope with. Also if pets are tricky to have then how do you anticipate a child?

I feel as though we should have kids. What have to accept the risk of a child having RTS or autism or possibly both.

Pets are tricky as in getting time off work to look after them. We could easily look after let’s say a dog quite easily though!

Nobody on here is going to say just go for it OP. Nobody.

You need advice from someone in genetics it looks like, not randoms on Mumsnet.

And getting time off work to look after a sick kid?

Ok, but as someone said above looking after a child will require a huge amount of flexibility. Or is one of you giving up work to be a sahp ?

Besides I’ve just had a quick google of the condition and obviously I don’t know how severely your gf is affected and I don’t expect you to give any further details but it looks like there is a 50% chance of it being passed to the baby. I think you and your gf need to be discussing this with her doctors- even if your gf is only slightly impacted the baby may not be. This is a decision you need to make with medical advice and expertise.best wishes

You need to seek specialist genetic counselling, OP. The fact that you’re asking randoms on the internet is worrying. As is the fact that you say you don’t have time for a pet with your work commitments, but think you’ll have time to raise a child, potentially, if RTS is heritable, with serious medical conditions as well as intellectual impairment?

You can drive a bus and write, both complex skills. To me any challenges you have seem manageable and not a bar to starting a family.

No one here knows your or your girlfriend personally, so no one can say what we think.

If you have to ask an anonymous forum whether you should have kids - then you probably shouldn’t have them.

Wait till you find out how much time you have to take off work for kids...

I have just looked up Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome. It is a very rare condition that causes certain physical features, including short stature and moderate to severe learning disabilities. There is a 50% chance of it being passed on from a parent who is affected to a child. I think there might be a distinct possibility of a child having a much more severe disability if this were the case. @Benny91, I think the potential risks are not so much with your autism but your wife's condition and a 50/50 chance of a child inheriting it is far too high a possibility to risk it. Ÿou are the only ones who can decide but you must talk through every possibility with a medical professional as well as your family. I also think you already know what the responsible course of action is.

I've taken off 10 days this year to look after sick toddler. DH taken off similar. A further 6 days sick from whatever was passed on to me. All of them having to call out on the day when they're too sick to go to nursery or when nursery called saying they're sick and I've got to go pick them up.

There was a stretch from January to mid-March where toddler didn't manage a single Monday still being sick from whatever was picked up at the tail end of the week before!

My friend whose DC is at same nursery has been off most of the last month. Dropped DC off on Monday. All good. Called on Tuesday not even 2 hours after drop off to pick up with diarrhea. 48 hour exclusion policy so can't come back until Friday at earliest. Came out with chicken pox spots the next Monday morning, 2 more weeks off. She's managed to work 1 day and 1 hour in 3 weeks.

That you still haven't mentioned whether she actually wants to have any children at all.

It might be what you want, but if she doesn't, it's pointless trying to convince others to agree with you, whether it's just out of interest or whether it's because you want to persuade/pressure her into doing something that isn't right for her.

ETA: the internet tells me that pregnancy could be very risky for her.

Until I looked this up I was of the opinion that you shoud have children if you wanted to. Now I think it is too big a risk.

50% + chance of having a child with difficulties is too high a risk for me. Adding together the RTS and the autism.

The RTS comes with many, many possible complications. You could easily have a very unwell, disabled child.

My work friends had genetic counselling they decided not to have children they could have gone with a sperm donor or different eggs etc but they decided child free was best for them it was one of those conditions where if you both had the gene there was a higher than 50% chance of the child being affected but if only one of you had it then the child would just be a carrier im not going to say it wasnt a struggle but they had a good life by all accounts and last I heard they were still together (unlike me and my not child free marriage)

@Benny91 to be honest your thread title is misleading.
It should have said "We have genetic conditions that could be passed on... should we have children?".

I think it should be 'My wife has a genetic condition that makes pregnancy significantly more dangerous for her than other women. I want her to do it at least twice because I think we should have children and it's not me that would be at risk. I'm right, aren't I?

@Benny91 Feeling like you are supposed to have kids doesn't mean you should have them and they require much more time off than a pet does.

Especially a child with disabilities.

Personally I think it is morally wrong to knowingly bring a child into the world with a high chance of a serious genetic condition when technology exists to eliminate that risk. By “serious genetic condition” I mean anything that is linked to a specific genetic mutation and that causes pain, disability or difficulty in living a full independent life. So I would have preimplantation genetic testing to eliminate RTS risk.

For the rest though, you have to consider if you could cope with a child with autism. Would your conditions allow you to give such a child the care they would need, given that sometimes their needs will conflict with yours? If the answer is yes, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have children just like anyone else.

@AirborneElephant, have you read his update where he tells us of his wife's rare genetic condition? She has it mildly but it can cause moderate to severe learning disabilities as well as physical issues and there is a 50/50 chance of her passing it on to any children they may have. I also think his autism is making him more adamant that he wants children without considering the very high risks involved. I think it would be highly irresponsible to even consider having a baby in these circumstances.

From a Dr Google perspective it sounds like a pregnancy could be very high risk for her. It's also really really hard having a disabled child. It's not to say that they are any less loved or valued by their families but the constant need to "fight" for appropriate support is gruelling these days

Just comparing having children who may have quite severe disabilities, with owning a pet dog suggests to me that the OP has no real idea of what looking after children will really mean. I also wonder if his wife is really able to properly assess the risk to herself & potential children.