Читать книгу The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Peter Godwin - Страница 47

My mother, now valiantly trying to adjust to the idea of a grandchild out of wedlock, advises me to have every test available. I call my proxy mother-in-law, a doctor in Zimbabwe. She advises me to ignore the test, stressing she had Georgina, Peter’s younger sister, at forty-one and was fine. ‘If everything’s fine then my motto is “leave well alone”,’ she counsels firmly.

‘But even if there is something wrong, I’ll still love it,’ I say, suddenly feeling weepy.

‘I wouldn’t be sentimental about having a Down’s child,’ she says quickly.

I remember something Professor Jack Scarisbrick, head of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, once told me during an interview. A long-standing advocate of pro-choice, I had gone to interrogate him for the Guardian during the last attempt to reduce the limit on the abortion bill in 1996.

‘People with Down’s syndrome bring much joy,’ he said, as we sat in his office surrounded by macabre plastic foetuses representing the various stages of embryonic development. They never murder or steal, they are loving and friendly and it’s good to have people among us like that. They bring out the best in us.’

At the time I wrote his comments down, dismissing him as naive. Now I’m pregnant, I can see his point. What if it does have Down’s syndrome? And do we want to know in advance? Now I’ve seen it on the sonogram, could I really face a termination? What if this is my last chance and I’m too old to get pregnant again? Is this my choice, a Down’s child or nothing at all? I pull out the blurry photo for the nth time and scan it for signs that something might be wrong. Pointless. I can’t make out anything.