{"id":255421,"date":"2021-10-19T06:45:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T11:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=255421"},"modified":"2021-10-18T18:03:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T23:03:59","slug":"mother-heartbreak-two-babies-trisomy-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mother-heartbreak-two-babies-trisomy-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom shares heartbreak of losing two babies to Trisomy 18: ‘They are in our thoughts constantly’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Claire Li and her husband Andy were hoping to give their son Noah a younger brother or sister. Heartbreakingly, not once, but twice, they were told<\/a> their preborn baby had a rare condition known as Edwards syndrome (Trisomy 18) and was not expected to survive long after birth.<\/p>\n

When Noah was two years old, the couple learned they were expecting their second child. But at the 12-week ultrasound, the doctor discovered that the baby had a cystic hygroma, a fluid-filled sac that stretched from the baby’s head to bottom. There was also higher than expected fluid thickness at the back of the baby’s neck. A week later they learned that their baby likely had a Trisomy condition such as Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome<\/a>, or Patau syndrome.<\/p>\n

“I was terrified and felt ill with worry, yet still determined that we could come through it,” wrote Claire in an essay for the UK’s\u00a0Metro<\/a>. When the couple went to the Fetal Medicine Unit, the doctor was not optimistic and advised them to have an abortion because their baby was unlikely to survive long after birth. “[B]ut this was our much-loved baby,” said Claire, and they refused abortion.<\/p>\n