I Have a Severely Disabled Son. The Geneticists Say That There’s Something Wrong With His DNA That They Don’t Recognize. I Know What That Is. I Know What He Is. And There’s Nothing I Can Do.

I have a severely disabled son named Toby. He is incapable of movement, communication, and seemingly any awareness of his surroundings whatsoever. He is bedridden and will be for his entire life. His birth was the undertaking of the most excruciatingly painful thirty-six hours of my life. His birth-defects are the worst things I have ever seen. The mere undertaking of the parturition was enough to permanently damage my reproductive system, and I will never have another child. He cannot engage in any activity unattended. I need to constantly feed him, wash him, and give him medicine to keep him alive. He will probably never even be able to move. His birth was the climax of a pregnancy that was going horribly wrong. Lots of part of his body hadn’t developed properly. The doctors told us that he wouldn’t even survive outside of the womb. Once I decided to go through the agonizing birth. And the doctors must have done something right, because a living breathing baby boy came out whole and parturition was over. <br><br>But that was only the beginning. His birth was just the beginning of the undertaking. His whole life, all thirty years of it, was going to be nothing but a painful and hopeless struggle. But I had to do it. He was my child, after all. The day he was born, he was taken away to geneticists. This was the first time I would see one of those goddamn geneticists. I would see them multiple times over the years. The genetic tests were taken immediately after birth and would be repeated every ten years of his life. There was something wrong with his DNA, one of those labcoats would tell me. The part of his DNA that makes him human was only 95% instead of 100%. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the “missing” 5% that was defective. The DNA worked perfectly, more perfectly than it did in a normal human. There was just something extra that wasn’t recognizable. Something extra that made up that extra 5%. DNA that didn’t belong to humans. That’s all that they knew. The geneticists knew of other people with the 5% extra recognizable DNA; they just didn’t know what it was. <br><br>The doctors didn’t know what Toby would be like when he’d grow up. They told me that they were worried that Toby might not grow up normal. But I was going to go through the agonizing birth anyway. But I was going to go through the agonizing birth anyway. That was that. My decision was made. The doctors told me to go home and rest. The pain was over, they said. But it wasn’t. Thirty years of pain were waiting for me. And I knew that I couldn’t undertaking it. I was too weak. It was almost enough to make me want to kill my baby boy. All these years of torture and unproductivity over a being that will never even be able to move. But it was too late. The baby had already been born. It was too late to end all this pain with a simple abortion. I had to go through with it. And I would. I was undertaking it.<br><br>The doctors told me to rest and come back in three days. But I couldn’t stay at home for three days. How could I possibly rest while my newborn lay in an incandescently lit operating room while all sorts of nifty gadgets and expensive machinery were hooked into his crippled body. No. I needed to be there. I was his mother. His only family. His father had committed suicide before parturition took place. I stayed for three days. Those three days were nothing compared to the thirty years I would have to undertake afterwards. All I had to do was sit. And while I sat, I saw. And what I saw! The doctors couldn’t recognize what was wrong with his DNA. But I did. I recognized it well. I knew what my baby boy was. I knew what he would become. I knew what he was for. All these years of torture and unproductivity over a being that will never even be able to move. All that pain and struggle undertaking the birth. All that pain and struggle undertaken for nothing. The baby would die anyway. All these years of incubation, of painful birth, of painful upbringing. And the baby would die anyway. I knew this. I had undertaken it before. <br><br>I had to undertake it. I looked at the baby. My baby. He was hideous. Disgusting. Twisted and deformed. I was his mother. His only family. I was a mother. And a mother has to undertake her duties. But how could I possibly undertake them? I couldn’t possibly undertake the painful upbringing. I couldn’t possibly give him the Thirty Years of Pain. There was nothing that I could do. The birth was too painful. I couldn’t possibly undertake the birth. But I did. There was nothing that I could do. The upbringing was too painful. There was nothing I could do. Thirty years of my life wasted. But I had to do it. I may not have been able to undertake Thirty years of Pain and incubation and parturition and upbringing. But I was a mother, and I had a duty. A mother always has to undertake her duties. But how could I possibly undertake them? There was nothing that I could do. The Thirty Years of Pain were too painful. But I had to do it. I knew what my baby boy was. I knew what he would become. I knew what he was for. All these years of torture and unproductivity over a being that will never even be able to move. All that pain and struggle undertaking the birth. All that pain and struggle undertaken for nothing. The baby would die anyway. All these years of incubation, of painful birth, of painful upbringing. And the baby would die anyway. I knew this. I had undertaken it before. <br><br>I had to undertake it. <br><br>I couldn’t. <br><br>But I had to. <br><br>I didn’t. <br><br>But I did.