One hundred Babies in One Hundred Boxes - Susanna Goldfinger

The genetic counselor looks at you with her empty, inscrutable face.
 
“If there were one hundred babies with these results, seventy of them would have Down’s Syndrome,” she says.
 
One hundred babies in one hundred boxes. It’s like a game show. You pick a box and maybe, hopefully, there’s a healthy baby inside.
 
“You’re at—how far along are you?” She says.
 
Week fourteen. Your husband nods. He is sitting right next you on the hard plastic chairs, and the genetic counselor behind her desk is talking to you both, but it feels like you are alone in a wind tunnel.
 
“I want to you to know that there's no right decision, only the decision that's right for you," she says with that blank face hovering over you like the moon.
 
Dr. Levy didn’t say anything was wrong. When you told her you went to urgent care thinking you had mono and the doctor there said ma’am you’re twelve weeks pregnant, Dr. Levy laughed. You really didn’t know? She said. It’s a girl, Dr. Levy said. I can hear the heartbeat. And for whatever reason you thought, Maybe I’ll name her Lucy.
 
You should have known but you didn’t. It’s hard enough to get the kids out the door every day. You grew up up north where everything is cold, hard, and frozen. Here the ocean is a warm bathtub and the palm trees sway like they’re tipsy and it’s easy to forget things.
 
“I understand you have kids,” says the genetic counselor.
Yes. An eight-year old boy, a five-year-old girl, a three-year-old boy. Your oldest boy is
 
always mad at your for being minutes late, for forgetting things. But who cares? Kids aren’t like baseball cards. You don’t trade one for another.
 
“There’s no right decision,” the genetic counselor says again. You’re not deaf. She doesn’t need to repeat herself like that.
 
“What are you thinking?” says your husband.
 
You shake your head.
 
“Is there another test?” you ask.
 
You don’t want to pick the wrong box.
 
“Yes,” says the genetic counselor. They can do an amnio at week fifteen. The results will be more definite. More like a diagnosis, less like an estimate.
 
Stupid you already told all three kids they were getting a baby sister. And then a smattering of friends and family and colleagues know as well.
 
*
 
It’s week fifteen. You sign a piece of paper saying you understand that you might miscarry during the amnio. You talk to Dr. Levy on the phone.
 
“Help me understand your thinking,” says Dr. Levy, “Are you prepared to care a special-needs baby, and then a child, teenager, adult?”
 
She has a name. Her name is Lucy.
 
“And then your children will have to care for their sibling after you’re gone. Do you want to saddle them with this?”
 
Dr. Levy always goes right to the point. Usually you love this about her.
 
A week later the results are in, and you are back in the office of the genetic counselor. She says: “If there were one hundred babies in one hundred boxes, ninety-one of them would have Down’s syndrome.”
 
The worst gameshow to ever air on daytime tv.
 
And then she says—say it with me now—“there’s no right decision, only the choice that’s right for you.”
 
At home your husband says, “I don’t think we have the bandwidth.”
True, but you probably wouldn’t even be having this conversation if she was
 
healthy—or—as you have learned to say—"typically developing.”
 
“I did some research,” he says. “People with Down’s Syndrome can’t have kids.”
 
I just think it’s like—there is no correction, you know?” he says.
 
No, you don’t know.
 
“Like a deaf person can have a hearing baby. But it just seems wrong to bring a child into the world knowing it’s the end of the line.”
 
The last baby in the last box.
 
“If you want to make this decision that’s fine,” you say.
 
You know that if you have to pick a baby in a box you will likely pick the wrong one.
 
“I’ll support whatever you want,” he says.
 
Right.
 
*
 
Dr. Levy called and made you an appointment with a doctor who can terminate. “I just want you to have options,” she says. “I don’t want you to miss your window.”
 
She doesn’t get it. You don’t want options.
 
The lady at the front desk tells you that the procedure will cost nine hundred dollars and you have to pay in cash. There is an ATM in the waiting room. It’s lucky you got this appointment because the doctor is going on vacation tomorrow, she tells you. Your husband punches the buttons on the ATM machine.
 
The nurse tells you to put your feet in the stirrups. She tells you that she is going to put you under, that it’s a quick procedure and when you wake up you won’t remember anything that happened. The doctor comes in and smiles and says hello. And the next thing you know he is saying Okay, we’re done here and the nurse is putting a maxi pad between your legs.
 
“It’s out,” the nurse says.
 
It?
 
“Was she sick?” you say. You want to know: Did you pick the wrong box?
 
The nurse shakes her head.
 
“We don’t do that here,” she says.
 
You would like to know.
 
The nurse shakes her head and purses her lips.
“We don’t do that. We don’t test afterwards.”
 
You did the thing everyone wanted you to do, the thing you know is probably right. Your husband agreed to tell the kids and to ask them not to ask you about it.
 
But still. She was your little Lucy. Dr. Levy felt the heartbeat.
 
You’ll tell people, We lost the baby, even though a baby cannot be lost like a glove or a retainer or a receipt. You’ll say you’re not calling to talk, just to let them know.