For a week now I’ve had the recollection of an interview with author Ayelet Waldman knocking about in my head. Waldman, who wrote the recently released memoir “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Graces,” sparked a controversy four years ago when she wrote in an essay for the New York Times that she loved her husband more than her children. In her May 5 interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, she talked about her and her husband’s decision to abort a child that amniocentesis showed to have the chromosomal defect Trisomy 18. The decision, she said, rested on her husband’s recognition that if the child was born severely disabled, it would likely destroy their marriage. 

Her account was gut-wrenching and reminded me of someone known to me who is getting a divorce and has a severely disabled child. The child’s condition, which requires in-home nursing care most of the day, was undoubtedly a factor in the couple’s split. But this isn’t the inevitable result with a disabled child. A study released in 2008 actually found divorce rates were slightly lower among parents of children with Down syndrome. The challenges, it seems, draw them closer together.

Waldman’s story made me think how, as recently as my mother’s generation, little was know about babies until they were born. Now modern technology allows us to know and see so much more  – even a 3-D image of the baby’s facial features. When everything is OK, parents can revel over the ensuing months in the great joy of knowing that they have a healthy baby. But when it’s not, parents are faced with agonizing choices that will change their lives forever. This is the beauty and burden of knowing. For the former, we end up paying with the latter.