Dear Prudence,
My husband and I are in our late 30s, parents of a toddler, and debating whether to try for a second. I would regret not doing so. He thinks he would too, but has really struggled with how little time he has had for himself post-kid and is a little reluctant to set the clock back on regaining his personal life.
An acquaintance recently ended a pregnancy due to a chromosomal abnormality. Shared friends have all said this is heart-wrenching but they would do the same. I realized I legitimately don’t know what I would do. I don’t want a child with that level of special needs. I definitely don’t feel like I could take that on. I would want to end a pregnancy like that—but I don’t know that I would actually be able to do it.
Ethically, do I need to tell my husband this? I don’t want to make him less likely to want to try for a second kid, it sounds like our odds of a chromosomally normal pregnancy are still well over 98 percent, and my husband really, really hates when I bring up “doom and gloom” topics that are unlikely to occur and often refuses to discuss them. I don’t think my husband would assume I’d act one way or the other in that situation, for what it’s worth, but it occurs to me that I would have the choice and he would just have to live with it. Do I need to tell him I don’t know what I would do?
—Just Trying to Do the Right Thing