Settling in

Well, this is the fourth day of known pregnancy, and both I and my body seem to be getting used to it. I'm gently nauseous now and then, my breasts feel subtly fuller and different, tender in a slightly different way - before a period, they have sharp, stabbing pain when pressed or suddenly jolted (say by a child's elbow); now they are just tender all over, and my bra already feels a little small. Occasional uterine twinges, but they feel normal too. I am not at all worried about miscarriage, for some reason - and I hope that's not hubris - I suppose it's just I've been lucky enough never to have one. I am, however, worrying about chromosomal problems and other birth defects. At my age, I have a slightly greater than 1% chance of a Down syndrome baby, which is not that high, if you think of it in terms of lottery numbers, but still of course a worry. I am spending a lot of time thinking about that, I think largely because it would be such a hard decision. If the baby had something dreadful and imminently termimal, like Edward's syndrome or anencephaly, then I wouldn't hesitate to have an abortion, because I would be certain it was the best thing for the baby. If it had something severe but livable with wrong with it, such as achondroplasia or a cleft palate, I wouldn't dream of not having it just because it wasn't Baby Perfect. But where is Down syndrome on this continuum? I just don't know. I gather from Google that about 600 Down babies are born in the UK every year, but that 90% of women who know about one beforehand decide to terminate, which must mean that there are several thousand women in the UK alone making this decision every year; but what a lot of hidden tragedy those figures must represent. Anyway, I suppose I should shelve all this for a while, as I can do nothing about it for now anyway.

I told my mother yesterday, who took the news pretty well; she said "That's all we need!" - which, given my father's incipient dementia and her imminent hip replacement, is fair enough - but basically she was very supportive and not judgemental at all, and I'm glad she knows. She seems to have acquired the mantle of my insomnia, as I spent all night in bed last night for the first time in 4 nights, and she was apparently awake most of the time.

Ah well. Easter weekend and family stuff, and with luck my universe will expand a little beyond the immediate confines of my navel (or pelvis, to be more accurate, as navel-gazing is outside the area of interest, at present).