This is a tough one. I just heard from a friend's mother today that our friend had lost her baby at 6 months, not because of a miscarriage, but because tests had revealed a hormonal imbalance that worried the doctors.

On scanning they discovered that the baby was badly deformed with Spina Bifida and advised her to terminate the pregnancy.

She was given pessaries and had to go through a form of labour and 'give birth' to the child.

The hospital were going to take the baby away for disposal, she asked what they did and she was told the baby would be cremated. I imagine that in the real world this means incinerated with other clinical waste but I don't know.

She chose to bury the baby and did so - and well done to her for that, definitely the right decision in my mind.

I know this opens up a whole host of issues and worries and is something i would rather not be thinking about right now while waiting for a baby, but it happened and you don't need me to tell you that it will happen to other people.

Let's just open this one up for calm and rational debate...

Dad

Sorry to hear that Dad,

It must be tough to have carried it for so long, and what a decision to have to make.

Makes you realise how lucky we are to have 2 healthy boys.

Very tough decision to make, our neighbour had to deliver a full term baby that had suddenly & unexpectedly died which was absolutely heartbreaking especially as they had been trying for years to have one. Luckily a year on they have been successful with number two but you can't imagine the stress levels that were going round.
All of us with healthy kids should take a moment to think how lucky we really are.

Both of these storys are very sad

I think most people just hope that nothing goes wrong, I know I didnt even think about it going wrong until the actual birth,when it all became very real.

At that point I was worried for my wife more than the baby as I had not really created a bond with him yet.

Different story now though, dont know what I would do if anything happened to either of my kids.

Such a tough decision. A good topic dad although obviously a tough one.
It's amazing when you talk to dads after there partners have given birth how many say their partners miscarried or lost their first baby for some reason.
It does happen and i guess the only comfort that one can have is that in many cases the couple go on to have a healthy baby. Natures way and all that. Still very tough indeed. (Unfortunately i speak with experience!!)

Keep up the chat lads.