To think that this woman was selfish and quite cruel

[MistletoeMush]

This has probably been done before and I know it is quite a controversial subject. I was just reading an article in Grazia about a woman who was expecting triplets and had two of them aborted. The reasons she gave included financial ones, not wanting to be a stay at home mum, wanting to give more attention to her individual child and not wanting to be bed-ridden during pregnancy when she wanted to be working. Her partner was initially against the abortion but came around. She says she doesn't regret what she did and one day will tell her surviving son about it. She wasn't on the breadline at all, she was working and describes herself as middle class.

Aibu to think that she was very selfish and that son may not be impressed when he is older and she tells him?

Sorry, leaving thread. Too upsetting. :(

Loopy - don't be disingenuous. You know what pro-life means in the vernacular - it means anti-abortion.

My mum would have aborted me if she'd got the chance. She wasn't exactly my favourite person when I discovered this as a teen, so I can imagine how her DS will feel in the future.

Twins can be hereditary. Nigeria, for example, has a huuuuge number of twins, particularly in older mothers. Not a coincidence, I think.

I'm sure the woman in question knows that her family wouldn't be happy with so many children. She would not be happy. I know another child would probably kill me emotionally.

Such a sad choice for someone to make, regardless of individual viewpoints.

Incidentally, DDs boyfriend is a 3rd generation identical twin. That cannot be co-incidental.

She also says that she knows she would not have had ahappy family had she had triplets. How does she know that

Same way I knew that if I continued with my third pregnancy, I expect! I knew that having a third would be too much for me, that I wouldn't cope.

People can & do know their limitations. And to be honest, I have complete respect for a woman who knows what hers are, especially when there are so many unwanted children in this world already!

Different- The odd thing is she said she knows that she would have coped if she had to but would be putting her children and herself at risk.

She also says that she would be the primary caregiver and breadwinner as it wasn't in her partners 'DNA, to oversextend himself'. How didshe know what he would be like as a father of triplets?

Sorry I am not anti-abortion at all(have had a termination myself) but this women sounds vile. I can understand selective reduction if mothers or babies health is at severe risk but to do it for financial or lifestyle reasons?.
So come on and flame me now for being "pro-life"

I am a single mother by choice. If I had found I was having triplets and I could have aborted two of them while keeping the one alive, I would have done. There is no way - emotionally, financially or in any other way - I could have coped on my own with triplets. I am a great mum to my DS but I can say with complete confidence that I would be an utterly shit one to triplets. I wouldn't cope. At all.

That doesn't make me a bad person, just a realistic one. And if any of you are pro-abortion, then what the hell does it matter why she chose to abort them? If you're pro-abortion, then you respect the right of a woman to abort a foetus for any reason don't you?

The fact that she went to Grazia and presumably got paid to justify her decision to abort 2 healthy babies makes her selfish and very, very cold in my book. I'm not saying it was unjustified if she genuinely felt she couldn't cope but the reasons given - didn;t want to spend time in bed, wanted to go back to work etc, seem a bit lame.

YANBU

did she have fertility treatment as the chances of naturaly concieving is slim

if she had f.treatment she would of been made aware of multiples (although the UK is pretty strict when treatment is needed allowing multiples)

im not anti abortion but i find this distastful at the very least,sounds like she wanted a designer baby to her tastes,no inconvenience to her or her life,i hope to god she never tells her son for his sake,but doubt she will be able to resist showing him the glossy article

feel very sorry for the alive child for so many reasons,i really dont believe the quote "her body her choice"

sounds like a complete bitch to me,and cant have much shame which in my opinion she should have to sell this to a magazine

I don't know how she knew that, or even if indeed she did. But she knows she wouldn't cope, isn't that enough? Figuring in that she would be the main carer, while her dh worked. Taking on 3 would be immensely hard work!

My dh supported me but I knew that part of him didn't agree with it entirely. He said we would manage, but I had doubts from very early on. I knew that when he wasn't here, 3 would overwhelm me totally!

After looking after our own 2 plus a friends child, he admitted to me that we had made the right choice. He found the entire afternoon exhausting, as did I.

It is possible to know your limits before you take on something & sometimes, that even means not continuing with a pregnancy if it would be too overwhelming!

And I don't think money comes into knowing your limits. So I have no idea why it was necessary to mention her financial status.

If you're pro-abortion, then you respect the right of a woman to abort a foetus for any reason don't you?

Evidentially not, LadyBiscuit! Pro abortion, but only if they personally endorse the reasons!

i really dont believe the quote "her body her choice

So what? Have 3 babies. Knowing she doesn't want them all. Possible trigger for PND = ineffectual care of 3 children. Stretched to the limits mother.

Fighting parents. Parents split as marriage breaks down under strain mother is under. Mother left as main carer of 3 babies she didn't want.

Resentment for 3 babies she didn't want. Question mark over the future of all children.

Yeah, all that is better than a mother knowing her limits, isn't it! Lets make women carry babies they don't want. 5 lives ruined because her reasons were 'lame'

How fucking prehistoric!

I have no relationship with my mother because she resents me ever being born. She was persuaded by my father & her family to keep me, we never bonded & stopped talking when I left home at 18.

We are doing IVF at the moment, and our Embryologist told us that lots of couples put a few embryos back, and then selectively reduce once they are pregnant.

I just wonder about the mechanics of this, though. Basically, you have a scan and then point to the ones you "don't want" then the doctor injects their hearts with potassium and they die.

I have to say, in a million years I could never do this...

Claire- I think they tell you which one they think has the best chance as often (esp with IVF) some look more viable than others.

"Twins can be hereditary. Nigeria, for example, has a huuuuge number of twins, particularly in older mothers. Not a coincidence, I think."

Fraternal twins are hereditary. Identical twins aren't. Twins are also more common in older mothers since ironically, as fertility declines, the release of 2 eggs in a cycle is more likely.

It is highly unlikely that the parents will choose which fetus to abort. This will most likely be a technical decision taken by the clinician undertaking the procedure. Likely it is the smallest and least viable that are chosen, or those closest to the needle. Triplet pregnancies are risky to both the babies and the mother, and in higher multiples selective abortion is recommended as the risk is that all the babies will be lost or disabled (although prevention where possible is obviously better, mostly by not using multiple embryos in IVF, although that isn't relevant in this case). I suspect that the alternative for someone who felt that they couldn't cope with a multiple birth would be to abort the whole pregnancy, I'm not sure why selective abortion is so much worse.

I agree it is not something I would personally choose to tell the world about, but lots of people do sell their stories, and lots of people pay to read them. Perhaps they are all cold/voyeristic - but I suspect that is probably unlikely.

I was quite frightened about having twins personally. There are quite a few in my family so it played on my mind. Triplets would have been (for me) really extremely scary.

Also, I just googled researched it, and apparently twins are also more common in Africa-American women than caucasians, so that might help explain the Nigerian thing.

I'm with you there Different and nooka

I'm pro-your-own-damn-choice but it does piss me off that she went to an entertainment magazine to discuss it and most likely was paid very handsomely for it.

It also pisses me off that in the province I live, I can no longer find out the sex of my baby because too many women are aborting female foetus' after they've found out the sex.

Its like Russian Roulette !

I agree that it was tacky to tell her story, but no one knows her motivation behind doing it was & speculating isn't helpful. Needless to say that people wouldn't tell their stories if there was no one to read them!

But what she did, she had her own personal reasons for & they are just as valid as anyone else's. It is her life, so it is for her to choose what direction her it goes in.

Her son can understand this, it has a lot to do with how she handles it as he grows older & the kind of person she raises him to be, imo.

It's easy to bring children into this world that just 'happened' as a result of a contraceptive failure or a night of stupidity. It is, imo harder to make that choice not to, 'just because' it happened.

And I am sure it wasn't an easy choice for the woman in question, but in her opinion it will afford her & family (inc any future children they may have) a better standard of living, whether that be because of finances, or because of her mental health being intact. I don't think that should be looked down on.

Because after all, we all make decisions every day that are 'the best for the family' don't we?

night of stupidity

Stupidity meaning forgotten contraception, etc.

YABU This was up to her and I bet it was the hardest choice she's ever had to make. I can totally understand why she decided to do this. Having one baby at a time can leave you emotionally, physically and finacially drained but 3? Some people cope well with a challenge like that and relish it while others don't.

In some ways it sounds like this woman took a hard look at her life, thought about the consequences of different options, and decided on the one that she thought would work best for her family given what she knows about her and her partner's characters. However poorly that's presented in a magazine I can't see it as a bad approach.

If her son resents her for it that would be a shame, though it sometimes seems children are destined to resent their parents for something, so maybe he will. Certainly if it's splashed across a crappy magazine in a sensationalist manner it will be an easy thing for him to latch onto.

Selective reduction is a sensible way to look after the health and well-being of your family. As others have mentioned, reduction is medically recommended for women carrying more than two embryos. Outcomes for triplets are not great. Outcomes for twins are still not as good as singletons. And carrying a multiple pregnancy is much more stressful on a woman's body than a singleton. We are built to have one child at a time - multiple pregnancies are an aberration.

I didnt even know that it was possible...