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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Being kept alive for the sake of the unborn baby..

260 replies

QueenofmyPrinces · 17/02/2020 17:37

A bit random, but just after some other people’s thoughts about a discussion I had with my husband last night and some of our friends.

We had all been watching Kill Bill and were chatting about the fact that the main character had been shot whilst pregnant, and was in a coma for ‘x’ amount of time and then when she woke up she saw her bump wasn’t there - I guess she assumed the baby had died but in the second film, she learns that the baby didn’t die and had been living with the father for 6 years.

I then said that if I was pregnant, and something happened to me that resulted in me being clinically dead, I would want doctors to put me on a ventilator, to keep me ‘alive’ in order to preserve my baby‘s life and then deliver it at 40 weeks.

DH said that hypothetically he would want the same as we would both want the baby to be allowed to live even if something happened to me.

One of our friends was pretty horrified by the idea though and said she couldn’t put her finger on the reason why, but she just didn’t like the thought of it.

I asked why wouldn’t she want the doctors to keep her ventilated to keep the baby safe and ultimately be born, but she couldn’t give a specific reason and just said it didn’t seem right.

We didn’t get into any big debate about it or anything but I’m just interested in what other people think.

I would absolutely want to be “kept alive” to enable the safe delivery of my baby and allow it to have a chance at life.

AIBU to think most women would feel like that?

OP posts:
oldfashionedtastingtea · 18/02/2020 12:45

I would sign a document that allowed for me to be kept ventilated to protect my unborn child’s chance of life.

If it would be medically possible then I'd sign such a thing in a heartbeat. I had a stillborn before and that pregnancy taught me that I actually give zero fucks about what happens to me when my baby's life is at stake.

Aridane · 18/02/2020 14:18

And do you also give zero fucks about your family, friends etc when you sacrifice your life for a foetus?

Aridane · 18/02/2020 14:19

(I am sorry for your stillbirth - Flowers - apologies for harshness)

Original poster
QueenofmyPrinces · 18/02/2020 14:38

And do you also give zero fucks about your family, friends etc when you sacrifice your life for a foetus?

Unless I already had a child to consider, no family or friends would take precedence over me wanting to keep my baby alive at the sacrifice of mine.

And to a lot of women an unborn baby is just that - a baby - not a foetus.

OP posts:
Original poster
QueenofmyPrinces · 18/02/2020 14:39

oldfashioned - I am very sorry about your stillbirth. I hope Aridane’s poor taste and very unnecessary post hasn’t upset you Flowers

OP posts:
phoenixrosehere · 18/02/2020 14:48

oldfashioned - I am very sorry about your stillbirth. I hope Aridane’s poor taste and very unnecessary post hasn’t upset you flowers

Was that necessary when Ariadne quickly apologised the moment she saw that.

WestBerlin · 18/02/2020 15:11

I wouldn’t be comfortable with, and wouldn’t consent to, this.

MixerTaps · 18/02/2020 15:29

find it nauseating to think that my dead body could be used as in incubator, for something that is unborn, has no rights, is not an established person in its own right.

You're talking about your hypothetical unborn baby and you speak of it so coldly, "something".

SarahAndQuack · 18/02/2020 15:33

Not everyone feels the same about foetuses, mixertaps.

MixerTaps · 18/02/2020 15:33

The key word there is "unborn".

That might mean they don't legally matter and get reduced to some sort of nothingness at best or at worst a parasite, but to a mother their unborn baby usually matters. The way some of you speak about foetusus is like they are nothing to you, no emotional attachment at all(in which case surely abort it) I wouldn't want to be your kids.

SarahAndQuack · 18/02/2020 15:41

Frankly, I wouldn't want you to be my kid either!

Look, I get that you feel emotional. Actually, I do too. But not everyone does. And it's not wrong to want to weigh up the balance of hurt to people in this situation. It could be incredibly traumatic for loved ones to watch someone kept alive on machines. My daughter is 2. Can you imagine? What on earth would you tell her about where mummy is and what is going on?

Mixertaps · 18/02/2020 15:45

I get that. It's more about the way people speak about the unborn as if they don't give a fuck about it at all, so detached.

Thymelord · 18/02/2020 15:48

You're talking about your hypothetical unborn baby and you speak of it so coldly, "something

Yes. To me it is something. It isn't cold to refer to something that doesn't exist, nor will ever exist, as something. You are free to be as sentimental as you like, I don't police your language, don't police mine.

Thymelord · 18/02/2020 15:49

I wouldn't want to be your kids

Yet you are quite happy to make comments like that, and attempt to gain the moral high ground. Why is that? Do you think you are somehow a better person/mother/woman?

SarahAndQuack · 18/02/2020 15:53

But some people do feel detached. Why shouldn't they?

Some people don't feel a connection to a foetus, especially early on. Some people, too, don't let themselves feel a connection (and there could be painful reasons for that).

GEEpEe · 18/02/2020 16:14

The pressure to feel some magical connection to your unborn baby or newborn can exacerbate perinatal mental health illness

Hugtheduggee · 18/02/2020 16:21

A fetus isn't a something. Even if it has no legal rights, it clearly 'exists' and is a he or she, not an it or a something.

Its not a baby yet, but it certainly is alive and it certainly exists.

SarahAndQuack · 18/02/2020 16:25

Well, there's something there, sure, but it's personal preference whether you want to call it he or she, or it or something, surely?

It's not a set of objective truths, is it?

Original poster
QueenofmyPrinces · 18/02/2020 16:28

”It isn't cold to refer to something that doesn't exist, nor will ever exist, as something.”

But the foetus (to use your term) will exist as something as it will be a baby once it’s born.

(I think it’s a baby long before it’s actually born but I accept others don’t feel that way).

OP posts:
oldfashionedtastingtea · 18/02/2020 16:39

And do you also give zero fucks about your family, friends etc when you sacrifice your life for a foetus?

@Aridane
I can understand where you're coming from. The foetus was more important to me than friends and family, yes. It was my first so I'm not sure if I would change my mind if I had another child to consider. I truely feel that nobody else has a say in what I do with my life, especially not my friends. If anything, some of my best friends think that having children is extremely selfish and ruins the world and I don't listen to that either Grin. I think that my family would understand in some fashion. I did feel very strongly bonded with the child after the first trimester and tgey knew that.

UghnotherStain · 18/02/2020 16:49

Calling your unborn "it" or "something" is quite nasty. I'd worry about a real pregnant mother doing that.

DinosApple · 18/02/2020 16:49

Brain dead - no way would I ever want to be kept alive for the sake of my baby- or for any other reason for that matter. I have a right to die.

If a C-section is undertaken immediately, so be it. Those decisions would be in the medical professions hands and depend on the circumstances.

The Irish woman's story is horrific. It is an outrage what her body, her family and existing children had to endure.
The poor woman was literally decomposing. And her 6yo daughter (on the advice of a social worker) had to see that. Poor, poor child.

BecauseReasons · 18/02/2020 17:23

Calling your unborn "it" or "something" is quite nasty. I'd worry about a real pregnant mother doing that.

I call mine 'it'. Worry away.

FredFlinstoneMadeOfBones · 18/02/2020 17:32

Well this is obviously hypothetical but If I could be kept alive and the baby would have been born healthy I would definitely want to be kept alive for the unborn baby. If I was brain dead it wouldn't do me any harm and it would mean my baby could survive. When I was pregnant I was very much attached to the foetus before it was born. If I'd had a still birth I would have been devastated.

GrumpyHoonMain · 18/02/2020 17:42

I think it should depend on the wishes of the family.