We take medical technology for granted these days – especially when it comes to pregnancies.  We rely on doctors and tests  to guide us to safe deliveries, and don’t think too much further than the birth of a healthy normal child.  That is, not until we suddenly have to.

Sian Hughes was pregnant with her third child and she went did all the required tests without thinking too much about them, just as she had with her other two children.

Like many couples, Sian and her husband never talked about what they would choose to do if the tests didn’t come out normal.

Brutal choice
And then she got a phone call from her doctor. The choice she faced was brutal: carry to term a child with a high probability of Down’s Syndrome, or have a medical termination. She made her choice, and has lived with the consequences since – a lifetime of shame, or loss, of regret.

Sian Hughes then wrote a poem called The Send Off. It won a major prize but it also brought her unwanted attention from people who had strong views about her choice, and about her decision to bring it out in to the open.

An extract from The Send Off

You are a hard lesson to learn,
soft though you are, and transparent.
  
There’s a mark on your forehead –
the simple flaw that separates
the living from the dead.
  
It looks like I dropped you downstairs.
I didn’t’. I promise. It was like this:

The Send Off and other poems by Sian Hughes are published by Salt Publishing.

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