Why did you have babies?

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Did you get your genetics tested?

Having a genetics test does mostly nothing to prevent illnesses and disorders being passed down.

Yeah but does it test for the big incurable ones? I don’t know why people have babies when they get so upset over gender.

What type of illnesses and disorders?

Eh if you don’t want your kid can’t they just trade it for something else at birth?

Oops, I read when, not why.

I was 38 and 41 but did no genetics testing nor took an amino. For me the decision is have kids or don’t have them; if you decide to have them, you love what you get.

I could see genetic information as useful to deciding if you want biological children v adopted, however. A front end evaluation, before entering the process at all.

Why? I’ve always wanted children, and while it wasn’t essential they be biological, we would have had difficulty adopting due to age. Watching my children grow up and became amazing young adults has been the greatest joy of my life.

My wife and I are fairly serious about our Christian faith. When we got married, we did not have a conversation about if we should have kids. Our conversation was about if we should do anything to prevent them.

Since having children is a natural process, we saw doing something unnatural to interfere with that process as the act that should be questioned. It is interesting to me that the question should first be "should we have children" rather than "should we prevent them"

It should be fairly obvious that having children is difficult economically, emotionally, and physically. However, as Christians we did not feel that our highest priority in life should be our own comfort and ease.

I had a test done to screen my fetus for Down's syndrome and that was it.

And why do people want kids, I don't think we can answer that, it is just biological. I have a IUD so I won't have the desire to have more kids. Plus it controls my periods too so I won't have to deal with any pain from it.

I didn't want babies. I'm deeply pessimistic about the state of our species and our ability to manage the climate crisis that is upon us. I did not want to bring a child into a world where I suspect she will have to see wars over basic resources and societal collapse. I believe this civilisation has peaked and things are going to get very bad, very fast.

Nonetheless I find myself the father of a child. An accident. After 12 years of relying on precautions to avoid pregnancy, precautions failed us. It happens. No genetic testing. I didn't know I was ASD, my partner didn't know she was ADHD.

My preference was to not have the baby, but ultimately that decision rests with the mother who once pregnant, experienced a change in her feelings and she insisted it would be born.

I was a reluctant father right up until the moment the doctor put my daughter into my hands, at which point I experienced a change in feelings of my own. Suddenly I understood that I loved this thing more than anything else in the world, more than myself, and that I had to protect it at all costs.

Raising a child is the most significant thing I've done with my life. By some distance. I take it seriously. It's been the source of the greatest happinesses in my life, but also the greatest sadnesses, the strongest anger, most overwhelming frustrations, my deepest fear. Basically, when I became a father, the emotional volume of my life was turned up, way beyond what I ever thought I could cope with. I've aged far more than the 7 years she has.

Sometimes I look at her and remember that if it had been my choice, she wouldn't exist at all. But I try to keep that one in the vault.

And I practice cognitive dissonance with her, so I can have a conversation with her about her future where she's become a doctor, or a vet, or an artist or whatever she wants to be that week, without crying and telling her how sorry I am that her world is utterly f****d and that I'm doing everything I can to change that but it probably won't be enough because there's too many people who resist change, even when it's in their best interests to do so.

People have children because they're biologically compelled to. And (for most) the compulsion overrides all intelligent analysis of the wisdom of doing so. The lizard brain is suppressed, but it still calls the shots. It's both the reason our species is so successful, and the reason we're doomed. Sleep tight.

Had babies because I like kids.

Didn't have my DNA tested as there was no need for it. Had it tested later on and nothing showed up. The only known family genetic problem is loss of hair. I have a lot of hair.

because i was so knocked out from cocaine and other drugs for 2 or 3 weeks that i was too unconscious to keep taking the contraceptive pill and i dont know how many men had sex with me during that time but one of them got me pregnant
my baby boy is 16 now

otherwise i wasnt planning on having any children

^I'm glad you're a good mother, and love your boy.

There are many times when I wish I was a dad.

I haven't had kids and most likely wont for various reasons I outlined in another thread, but I would actually like to have them and would prefer to be able to have healthy children. I like taking care of kids and I also enjoy watching them develop and grow. I would like to have my genetics tested before I potentially had any children so I could know what they're at risk for + if it's worth risking certain disorders/issues (my ASD isn't that severe, but I have other problems that may or may not be genetic and would, IMO, be mean to inflict upon a child).

My younger brother was born when I was 11, and due to various difficulties in our family I ended up putting in a lot of time to raise him. I enjoyed it, he's in uni studying to become a lawyer now, so when I got married I kind of felt like I had already went through the "trial period" and thus saw no big problems about raising a child. I didn't get any genetic testing as I know what I have and I'm prepared to help my child if she has similar problems growing up. I don't think me having certain psychiatric diagnoses is a valid argument for not having children. If I think that way, my parents might as well thought like that about me and never had me, but I'm glad they did.

We had quite a long journey to having our daughter, though, so it took a lot of stamina to become a father.