There Seems to Be A Big Problem

What happens when you hear these words at your sonar?

- Margot Bertelsmann

The twelfth of May 2009 was a day filled with a lot of excitement and expectation, as we were to find out our baby’s sex on that day,” remembers Pretoria mom-of-two Melinda Beckmann. “Family, friends and colleagues waited for a phone call or SMS,” she says.

“However it wasn’t the SMS they expected,” she continues. ”Instead, it read, ‘Please pray for our unborn baby, there’s something wrong with her back.’ My husband and I drove home numb, replaying the words that the doctor had just said: ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t the news you were expecting, but it appears your baby has spina bifida. In cases like this 50 percent of people decide to abort. I will refer you to a foetal assessment centre.’ I was 20 weeks pregnant – how did a perfectly normal, healthy pregnancy become this?”

While Melinda is describing any pregnant woman’s worst nightmare, please be reassured that antenatal abnormalities aren’t the norm, and some can be managed while your baby is still in the womb. Your chance of having the conversation Melinda had with her doctor are low, but if it should happen, here are some things you will want to think about.

To the extent that the Beckmanns were robbed of anything, they were robbed of the luxury of a worry-free second half of her pregnancy – like anyone who receives news of an anomaly. Suddenly, the Beckmanns’ lives were full of foetal assessments, genetic counsellors, tests, tests and more tests, and often a bleak outlook from the medical professionals, whose prognosis was that their baby would not walk, and may even have brain damage.