Poor Prognosis

A Choice for Love– Susan E. Hodge

A journal after a genetic termination

A Gift of Time – Continuing Your Pregnancy When Your Baby’s Life is Expected to Be Brief – Amy Kuebelbeck and Deborah Davis

A Gift of Time is a gentle and practical guide for parents who decide to continue their pregnancy knowing that their baby’s life will be brief. When prenatal testing reveals that an unborn child is expected to die before or shortly after birth, some parents will choose to proceed with the pregnancy and to welcome their child into the world. With compassion and support, A Gift of Time walks them step-by-step through this challenging and emotional experience—from the infant’s life-limiting prenatal diagnosis and the decision to have the baby to coping with the pregnancy and making plans for the baby’s birth and death.

A Time To Decide, A Time To Heal – Molly A. Minnick, Kathleen J.  Delp, Mary C Ciotti

is about the experience of parents making difficult decisions about babies they love, about taking control in a seemingly out of control situation, about hope for healing and about the experience of a subsequent pregnancy. It’s about how couples heal – together and apart, about continuing a pregnancy with known fetal anomalies, about selective fetal reduction, and the experience of D&E. It also includes touching poems, letters and memorials written by parents.

Beyond Prenatal Choice – Centering Corporation

Support and information after pregnancy termination due to fetal abnormality.

Embracing Laura: The grief and healing following the death of an infant twin – Martha Wegner-Hay

In Embracing Laura, Martha Wegner-Hay tells her story of grief and joy after discovering she was pregnant with twins, that one twin would not survive, and giving birth to her healthy son, David. After being told that one of her twins had almost no chance of survival and that the sick baby could affect the chance of survival of the healthy twin, Wegner-Hay and her family made the difficult choice of selective reduction. Embracing Laura tells of the wrenching collision of sadness at Laura’s death, and the joyous experience of David’s healthy birth.

Help, Comfort & Hope – Hannah Lothrop

Help, Comfort & Hope after Losing Your Baby in Pregnancy or the First Year, is warmly written for those who have lost a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, SIDS or termination of pregnancy. In the first part of the book, Hannah Lothrop offers practical coping suggestions for families and gently suggests what has helped other parents survive the crisis of losing a child. In the second part of the book, she provides specific information for caregivers — hospital staff, ministers, funeral directors, support group leaders — who work with grieving families. An extensive resource section helps identify additional sources of support.

Loving and Letting Go – Deborah L. Davis PhD

Deborah Davis has written, Loving and Letting Go, for those parents who decide not to seek aggressive medical intervention for their critically ill newborn. The book guides parents as they try to sort through the medical information that is being presented them and balancing that with the many emotions and quality of life issues that parents in this situation must weigh. Davis also helps parents anticipate some of the reactions others may have to their decision and offers possible responses. A much needed and well done resource.

Our Heartbreaking Choices: Forty-Six Women Share Their Stories of Interrupting a Much-Wanted Pregnancy – Christie Brooks 

This book is about ending a pregnancy due to a poor prenatal diagnosis or due to serious maternal health complications. This book contains 46 personal stories, each one from a woman who decided to interrupt a much-wanted and oftentimes much-planned pregnancy. There is very little societal support for parents who make this decision, which leaves most parents to deal with their sadness and grief alone.

Precious Lives Painful Choices: A Prenatal Decision-Making Guide – Sherokee Ilse

This sensitive book offers a comprehensive discussion of the options available to prospective parents after hearing bad results from prenatal testing. The pros and cons of both termination and continuing the pregnancy are presented in a non-judgmental way, offering families information and reassurance that they must do what is right for themselves. Quotes and stories from people who have both continued and ended the pregnancy are included, clearly showing that neither choice is easy and neither one offers a short cut. Both are painful and life altering. Too often family, friends and even medical caregivers may put on pressure about what they think would be best. The big question is, ‘Which decision is the one that you can live with for the rest of your life.’ Excellent resource list and bibliography are included. Families are encouraged to read this guide at the time of their decision-making, before they make a permanent choice.

Waiting with Gabriel – Amy Kuebelbeck

When Amy Kuebelbeck was five-and-a-half months pregnant, she was told that the child she was carrying had a fatal heart condition. She and her husband were then faced with an impossible decision: give their baby a chance at life–and with it, enormous pain and suffering–or let their baby die naturally, shortly after birth.

When Courage Lies in Letting Go – Deborah Davis

This gentle, parent-friendly book affirms parents who are considering palliative care, or have already decided against continued aggressive medical intervention for their dying child. Listen to the stories of parents who have been there. Read about what “medical miracles” can really mean, and know that your decisions come from love, devotion, and the courage that lies in letting go.