Posted on 02/03/2003 7:53:57 PM PST by Geronimo
JUBILANT Annette Quinlan yesterday hugged her little miracle — a baby girl born despite the mum’s body trying to REJECT the tot in the womb. Annette — victim of a rare medical condition — endured 14 years of heartache as she suffered NINETEEN miscarriages.
But she and husband Alan were helped by pioneering medical treatment after refusing to give up their dream of one day having a child.
Annette, 42, beamed as she cradled precious 3lb 4oz daughter Niamh and said: “I wanted a baby so much.
“I’ve always been the sort of person who perseveres. I just won’t give up.”
The psychiatric nurse was referred for tests after her tenth miscarriage. All had happened around seven weeks into her pregnancy.
Specialists in London said there was nothing they could do.
But Dr Siobhan Quenby, of Liverpool Women’s Hospital, discovered Annette’s own immune system was attacking her embryos.
Consultant Roy Farquharson, head of the hospital’s miscarriage unit, said: “Every woman has some ‘killer cells’ in her womb. But Dr Quenby discovered Annette had the highest concentration of these that we had seen.
“We believed these were causing her womb to attack the embryo and destroy the placenta in the same way the body sometimes rejects a new organ after a transplant.”
The medics used a powerful steroid — Prednisolone — to suppress Annette’s immune system.
Sadly, although the pregnancies were lasting longer, Annette still lost more babies — including twins 12 months ago.
She was 31 weeks pregnant with Niamh when she was admitted to hospital with high blood pressure.
Doctors discovered the baby’s growth rate was slowing — so recommended a Caesarean op.
A week later they delivered the tot.
Niamh was last night making good progress in an incubator.
Annette, of Clutton, Cheshire, said husband Alan, 46, a taxi driver, was “thrilled” at becoming a dad.
She said: “I don’t think he ever really believed it until he actually saw Niamh. She is definitely worth waiting for.”
We didn't take our five losses as a sign that we shouldn't have children either. Our two sons are healthy youngsters and the joy of our lives. We all face challenges in our lives, and we can choose to give up or we can continue striving. There's not much satisfaction in giving up, in my opinion.
At some point, after it becomes apparent that your odds of carrying a baby to full term (or close enough to ensure its survival) are miniscule, does not conceiving come awfully close to abortion? No doubt the intentions were better, but the results were the same, until the last success.
Truthfully though, 19 would have been far past my limit, more due to the cumulative trauma than anything. But I congratulate the couple on their success anyway.
God is trying to send you a message when you have 19 miscarriages. The effect on the body is the same as if she had 19 surgical abortions.
Now we have a child in the NICU to blow through several hundred thousand dollars on (at least, maybe more), and a new generation with the opportunity to do it all over again in 25 years.
Okay, so do you advocate allowing mentally retarded people to marry and have children? Shall we get rid of all the blood tests for syphillis and the like when you apply for Marriage Licenses? Should we let people with known crippling genetic diseases marry and reproduce?
Just where does this "absolute right" to reproduce and slough off the costs onto society begin and end?
Someone wants to have 19 miscarriages? Fine. Just don't expect the rest of us to want to pay for it through insurance premiums and government health care programs.
You are free to do as you wish, but get you hand out of my wallet.
Another fallible mortal like you. Since when do you have the right to silence opinions? Think YOU'RE God? Too bad you let your emotions rule. DOn't worry it's true more often than not that the fallible will of a mere mortal prevails over God's will.
The same thing would be done in the US, just as it is with these people who use fertility drugs and have 7 or 8 babies, then expect the rest of us to come in and pick up the bag.
You can take your anti-eugenics Nazi spiel elsewhere. No one here is saying these folks should be sterilized and shouting Sieg Heil. Just use a little common sense and lay off the tiresome Nazi stuff, okay?
Normal, sane, healthy people support voluntary "eugenic" practices though. Its called "wanting healthy children", and it has zilch to do with Nazis and gas chambers and all the rest of what you are trying to bring up. Apparently, you support dysgenics instead, and want to see the spread hereditary diseases among the populace, and the multiplication of weaklings and sickly people? What a strange world you live in!
Lastly, when people abuse health insurance and use it for repeated costly measures like this, it ends up coming back to the rest of us as an increase in insurance premiums, which we do pay. Its not like the tooth fairy is printing money in her spare time for the insurance companies to fund these procedures so it doesn't impact our paychecks and company balance sheets.
People are free to do as they wish. But when it starts to impact on the rest of us, society has a right to put a stop to it.
Why do you folks always misrepresent what Christ said?
He did not say "do not judge." He did say, "For by the judgement with which you judge, you shall be measured." People are free to judge provided they are willing to also be measured by the judgement they use upon others.
If we all stopped forming judgements, we'd soon be in a terrible predicament as we left ourselves defenseless in the face of our common sense. Is it "judgemental" to suspect someone walking quickly up to you on a dark and deserted street at night might be up to no good? Is it judgemental to suspect people released recently from prison are less trustworthy than Boy Scouts?
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