It's So Personal: The Regret

A reader writes:

My wife and I are/were staunch choice advocates; we'd both done our share of marching on Washington for the cause. Actually enduring the process gave us a much more nuanced opinion about abortion.

For us, it was Trisomy 21 -- Down Syndrome. The test came after my wife awoke one night in a pool of blood screaming and thinking she'd suffered a miscarriage. After she ran to the toilet, it fell upon me to call her doctor and then scoop out the remains--that actually turned out to be huge clots--and take them to the doctor the next day. The geneticist said that because of all the bleeding and other complications there was almost no chance the fetus would make it to 20 weeks let alone full term.

My wife says one of my finest moments as her husband came when I somehow made her laugh while she awaited the abortion. My wife doesn't talk about her feelings of the abortion and the "failed" pregnancy. But we've been together for more than a decade and I know she will always be crushed by it. I know we made the right decision for us but it still hurts badly. This was the son we would never have.