AIBU to not want to have a baby with autistic partner?

[MeVengo]

Hi everyone. Apologies about the grabby title.

I guess I'm looking for any advice or words of wisdom here. I already have 5 year old DD with ExH. I've been with my partner a couple of years, this year slowly introducing him to DD with the plans of hopefully living together next year. As long as DD is happy and settled that is, she is a priority of course.

Anyway more to the point. My partner is autistic. I know there is risk of having an autistic child regardless of genetics and that was a risk I was willing to take when I had DD (2 NT parents.) My partner is autistic. It does come with its challenges but I love him and he's been very open and honest about it. Recently we had a conversation about having children. I'd like one more, and he would like one. We were speaking about what he was like as a child. Him and his brother are both autistic. He was essentially telling me that he didn't sleep for the most of his childhood, he ended up in respite care for periods of time as did his brother. There's also a big genetic link with autism too. To be honest I just don't think I can willingly TTC knowing there's such a big risk. It's a different risk to TTC with no history of neurodiversity and that was a risk I was willing to take 6 years ago.

I feel pretty selfish for having this point of view and I can't really articulate how I'm really feeling. Of course no post chooses to have an autistic or disabled child, but I'm going to have to tell him that I don't think I can willingly try for a baby with him knowing there's such much bigger risk factors. The impact it could have on my DD. I've read through many threads on here recently after we discussed this, and there are so many many threads where (mostly mums) struggle, how their life is turned upside down, the impact on any siblings etc.

As mentioned I know there's a risk for any child to have any sort of disability, and that's a risk I'm willing to take. But when there's genetics and immediate family history of it, I think that's different.

Am I being unreasonable to feel like this? Can any parents who have been in this situation give me any words of wisdom? Do any parents of autistic children in hindsight would you change anything?

If he really wants to have a child, and he's so within his rights to want that for himself, as much as it will break my heart I will have to end the relationship because I wouldn't want him to feel stuck or resentful towards me because of how I feel.

As much as he has been open and honest about his autism, now we spent a lot more time together, there are definite struggles, some adaptable but some challenges for sure. I desperately don't want to end a relationship 'because he is autistic' but I just know that's how he will take it, if I tell him I don't want to have a baby with him. And that breaks my heart. I feel awful about this and don't really know if I'm entitled to even feel like this.

My husband is autistic. Didn’t know until after having autistic DD. It has not been plain sailing. That’s the shortest I can put it tbh.

If I knew my path I may well have taken another

You can’t know from tests what the probability of severity is! You have a 50/50 of having a child with autism if one parent is and as the parent with autism is the dad that’s a lot higher risk. Until the baby is born and starts developing you have no idea just how severe the autism is. Is often isn’t the same with siblings from the same parents. I have 4 all with ASD and they get it from their dad. One of them is extremely severely affected and had I had them first we’d never have had any more! Just from the lack of sleep alone and never even being able to go to the loo alone or go back to work as nurseries wouldn’t accept them etc

I'm really proud of my disabled child and wouldn't change her

If I could go back, I would have her again, knowing the autism risk

If you feel that you wouldn't - don't have kids

I also have asthma, eczema and mental health issues in my background. One relative has COPD.

I still would have kids.

Honestly, this way of speaking about autistic children is despicable. You wouldn't speak about an amputee in the same way.

Autistic and proud. If you can't hack it - wear a condom!

🙄🙄

Autism is such a massive spectrum, but I think you are right to not want a child with such strong genetic risk factors.

My friend's daughter has a 3 month old baby with her autistic boyfriend. Boyfriend (21) is a lovely person but he is not coping well at all with the responsibility of parenting. He would never deliberately hurt the baby but he just doesn't seem capable of remembering to prioritise the baby's safety. Twice he has pushed the buggy out into traffic while distracted (one was a very near miss). Another time he abandoned the baby and buggy in a busy shop because he wandered off to look at something interesting and forgot he had the baby with him. Currently he's not allowed to be in sole charge of the baby - it's very stressful for all involved. Now she's worrying in case the baby turns out to be ND too.

Apparently more of a risk if mother is autistic. Autistic father only slightly higher risk than with two NT parents. For all we know there are many other conditions with same risk that we don't know about or think about. However, bare numbers can be misleading. The OP should seek help with interpreting the data and understanding risk. However I'm surprised she isn't worried about her DP adapting to parenthood.

That's lovely- really- but you don't really get to make decisions for other people or berate the OP.

My aunt would not have had her abusive autistic son if she had known. She told me so.

This illustrates my point because I've just looked this up and found info that claims it's more of a risk if the mother has autism, and the risks stated were a lot lower than 50%. That's why the OP has to talk to someone who knows about it.

No. The consensus is that it should be avoided by the OP as she already has one child that she must consider. Also, that he struggles with minor issues that can cause him to crash, which is very likely to happen with a baby then toddler in the house. He can't cope with changes to his routine, again this will have to happen as the baby (and the existing DD) needs must come first.

He really doesnt sound like he can make the necessary compromises to become a good parent, so the OP has made the right decision for her.

I'm not making decisions for the op - she asked if she was being unreasonable, she was told she is.

Is your DD autistic though? Because there's a really big difference between parenting a physically disabled child and parenting a severely autistic one. And fair enough but the conditions you describe like asthma are not exactly major ones. Would you still have a child for example if you knew you carried the Huntington's gene? Because no way in hell would I do that and I would class anyone who knowingly did as just being really selfish and putting their own wants first. There's nothing noble about deliberately confining someone else to a horrible existence.

If you aren't put off by all the - don't have any child with him he won't be a great dad type comments - and have the money, you could potentially go to abroad for IVF and have the embryos screened for autism risk (not legal in the UK, I believe) before implantation.

How do you think the conversation with him would go about going to those lengths to try to avoid autism in a child, though? Would he find that deeply offensive?

YANBU at all.

What support?!

You have to do whatever is right for you but just to add my perspective in case anyone else struggling with this decision looks at this thread in the future. I have 3 children diagnosed AUDHD. Neither my DH and I are neurodivergent. Our kids are conceived via sperm donor. The donor is AuDHD with some quite serious impairments from what I have seen online.

None of mine have learning disabilities and they are all in/have attended mainstream school. Two have been a dream to parent. little bit of anxiety from time to time but really interesting unusual people who are kind, loving and not particularly needy. One has had serious mental health difficulties that I never thought she would recover from although as she grows older things are considerably better and I think she will lead a normal life/is becoming a sweet adult. Parenting her has been very hard at times (meltdowns, violence, poor behaviour) but honestly if I had had 3 NT children I suspect one of them might have been difficult to parent as well.

One has issues with food. She has just gone to university and we are really enjoying the freedom to cook and eat what we want. None have had awful sleep issues (sometimes getting to sleep a bit difficult and we did try melatonin but they stayed asleep once asleep). They have all struggled with school and friendships but have made friends as they have gotten older.

They have opened my eyes, made me see a different world and I am a better person as a result.
I don't have any other experience with other children but I don't think what we have had has been particularly worse than anyone else. I certainly wouldn't swap them for NT versions.

Having a child who can inherit genetic issues is something that needs careful consideration. One of our daughters has schizophrenia and autism and she has made our lives hell since the age of 12. In hindsight, we now realise her behaviour mirrors my MIL's, who has been in and out of mental institutions since the age of 20, but was never diagnosed as she always refused to cooperate with doctors. She was a very difficult person and her family adjusted to live around her behaviours and it was all shrugged off as 'the way she is'. Now my DH realises his mother was very ill, possibly with a genetic condition and feels guilty that he didn't think more carefully about this when we were talking about having children. He thinks he would have felt differently about having children had he had all the information but what is done is done.

You are not wrong to consider whether or not you will cope or how it will affect yourself or your daughter's lives. It's not wrong to consider how he will cope either. One of my friends has a schizophrenic parent and two siblings - her father is their full time carer as they are all so unwell they cannot work or live independently. She rolled the dice and had one child. She hasn't been lucky and while she adores her son, she feels very guilty that she went ahead with having a baby knowing there was a strong possibility it could inherit an genetic condition. She also became a single parent as her husband couldn't cope once the schizophrenia starting manifesting and yes, she told him the risks, he still wanted a baby.

Honestly, there is no right answer to this. Had someone been able to prove to myself and DH that his mother was schizophrenic, would we not have had children of our own? We were desperate to have a child and that biological urge can override everything. I think we would have risked it. The fact that you don't want to probably says it all.

As a mum of 4 2 NT 2 ND, you're being incredibly sensible. My 19yr old has AuADHD and he lives a normal life but needs help in some areas. He was fine socially, struggled academicaly but on the whole he is and always was a breeze.
My 3yr old....he is non verbal and from the age of 14mth he has been absolutely non-stop. He is beautiful, always smiling, always happy but he is hard hard HARD work. He could play in an empty room and make it dangerous somehow. I won't write everything because I would be here all day. You're not unreasonable in the slightest. Not to me anyway.

My DC are both ND and both "low needs" they are fantastic, funny, intelligent and unique kids but it's been really, really difficult at times. The lack of sleep nearly killed me. There are still issues with sleep, mental health, emotional dysregulation, toileting, friendships, following instructions, self esteem, fighting the school system, seeing them struggle in a world not built for them to flourish in. If I could wave a wand and make them NT, I think I probably would, for their sakes. If I could go back in time I'd do some things differently but I would 100% be glad I had them.

But - I have friends with much more severely impacted kids, with very high needs. That's a whole different ball game. Their lives are just about finding ways to survive, and barely managing that. The risk of that is real, and totally life altering, and so impossibly difficult for the whole family.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Autism is hereditary, it is widely known. There have been numerous twin and family studies that estimated its heritability between 60% and 90%. This means that not all children of autistic parents have autism, but the majority do have it.

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/about-autism/what-causes-autism

https://medschool.ucla.edu/news-article/is-autism-genetic

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12111747/

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/autism-is-genetic

https://autismdetect.co.uk/is-autism-genetic/

I don't think the Huntington's disease and autism is the same

And my child is autistic - we are very proud of this

Sorry but if you ask if you're being unreasonable about having a kid who could be an amputee, or a kid who could be deaf, you'd be told the same, only in far harsher terms.

If you don't want to risk a neurodiverse kid - dont have kids xx

Someone has to stand up for our kids, they're not deserving of being spoken about like this, in the same way amputees and paralysed people aren't.

This. In your situation I would 100% not have a child with this man. I probably wouldn't continue the relationship even leaving children out of it.

I know, I didn't take it as a judgement - apologies if it came across if I did

I agree with this. I have two with diagnosed Audhd and one NT. Our whole life revolves around my ND audhd child. My heart breaks for my NT child

Christ this is like the ‘cancel the cheque’ thread. The OP has ALREADY SAID she’s going to end the relationship.

Which FWIW I think is sensible OP, although I’m sorry it’s come to that.

You do realise nobody here is attacking you or your child? Just checking

I love and adore my husband, who is totally NT. But I'm very glad I met him when we were both too old to have children, because I would not have wanted to parent alongside him. I love living alongside him, but he is terrible at making decisions and finds it impossible to not give in to people who want things from him or say no. Makes him a perfect man for me to retire with, but a terrible parent.

And that's a valid enough reason not to have children with someone whether the traits they have that would make them a bad parent are due to ND or just their character.