The greatest gift from parents to a child is a healthy pair of genes; such that the child or offspring does not end up with the sickle cell genotype or even become a carrier.
In all honesty, most problems could be avoided if individuals, especially adults, took calculated risks or, better yet, did not take them at all.
A couple of times we must have heard the saying that love is not enough, and it really isn't, especially when it has to do with scaling through the challenging situations of losing one's child. One thing I have come to realize is that in the heat of the moment, talk is cheap. Basically, people will always come up with all these great ideas as to how to cheat certain situations until they come face-to-face with reality.
There used to be this lady who said she was AS. At the time that she was unmarried, she had all these really great advice and medical approaches as to how couples who are carriers could get married amidst the dangers of procreating a sickle cell genotype or carrier.
During these times I would always read her opinions on Facebook with keen interest, and honestly, they were all plain ridiculous.
One of her takes that I remembered was her saying that thanks to scientific interventions, the genotype of a fetus can now be identified at the early stage of pregnancy, and as such, if the fetus is detected with the sickle cell gene, it would be easily terminated to prevent the risk of being born. And then I asked myself, to what end? Why subject your body to all that trauma when you could have just walked away?
Well, guess what guys, this lady did get married to a man who is AA and she came back to tell us how she miraculously went from AS to AA..
The thing is, when it comes to sickle cells and the future of one's children, love should be taken far away from the decision-making process. I have heard of a couple who believed that they could do the math and just have 2 healthy or carrier offspring and end at that, thinking that they would beat not having a sickle cell child. But it's funny how life works because in such instances or situations, the first or both children usually have sickle cells.
Personally, coming to such a discovery of my partner and I being carriers on our wedding day would automatically end our union no matter how much in love I am. Like I said, love doesn't erase the emotional trauma of losing a child.
I remembered when that was the fate of 2 Nollywood actresses with sickle cell children. One of the children died as an adult, and the other died as a teenager. Both women couldn't recover from the loss, as one died afterwards and the other is currently exhibiting signs of insanity. Worse? They were both only children of their respective parents.
My family has also not been spared of the sickle cell trauma, as my great-grandfather became a polygamist because of it. Although at the time it was attributed to psychic attack, as there was no awareness then. But in recent times, with the awareness and the necessary tests done before marriage, it was discovered that some of my maternal offspring are carriers, which makes my great-grandfather a carrier and the wife before my great-grandmother a carrier. Thus the death of most of this offspring in adulthood at the time.
Being knowledgeable of the challenges and risks involved in going on with such a marriage with a carrier, if I were a carrier, the necessary steps to avoid procreation would be the follow-up action, but then again, to what end, I ask.
Sending you some Ecency curation votes!
Thank you so much 😊🙂
My pleasure!
!PIZZA
!INDEED
Very enlightenimg. Thanks for sharing
you are welcome
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