COMPETENCE
you (speaking to my wife) will need to
be admitted now (in the 3rd month
of pregnancy) till the delivery. You
should know that even after doing
that there is only a 50% chance at
best of the survival of all 3 babies and
even less that they will all be normal.
To complicate matters further,
we had a 3 year old daughter who
needed our care.
2. Abort all. The second options
was to go for a complete abortion
and lose all the babies.
3. Selective Abortion. The doctor
explained that the triplets are not
all in the same amniotic sac but
connected to the same placenta. As
they were getting nourishment from
only one placenta, it was making
matters complicated and therefore
the low chance of their survival or
of being born normal. He further
explained that the twins are in one
amniotic sac and a single baby in
another. He could do a selective
abortion, something that is pretty
normal specially in cases of fertility
treatments. This was something
new for us, as we had never heard
about selective abortion in my native
homeland, Pakistan. Here the doctor
gave us two possibilities:
• Keep the twins and abort
the single baby. The chances for
the survival of the twins and the
probability of them being healthy was
assessed by the doctor to be about
75-80%.
• Keep the single baby and abort
the twins. The probability of the survival
of the single baby and of her being born
healthy was 95%.
As if the options were already not
numbing enough, he told us that we have
to make the decision within a week. We
knew that an indecision will be a painful
decision and that we had to decide and
that too very soon.
We were in a conundrum and facing
all the emotions that transcend when
you have to make a difficult decision.
Emotions like uncertainty, fear, time
pressure, helplessness, and anxiety. It
was a difficult time for us and we knew
that we had to keep a calm mind and
make the best decision based on the
data we have and be prepared for the
consequences. It is easy to say but really
difficult to keep the monkey mind calm.
The mind has this uncanny habit of
overthinking and can take a small thought
all the way to the grave.
Needless to say that this was the most
difficult decision of our lives, as it
involved many lives: my wife’s, my little
daughters and of my babies that were yet
to come to the world. With every passing
day the pressure was mounting. We
prayed to God to seek his guidance and
then used the followings steps to decide:
1. Values are a guiding light. I reverted
to my values which are: Courage, Love,
Integrity, Passion for Winning and
Inspiration. I believe strongly that when
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