Salma Hayekfeared her baby would be born with Down Syndrome during most of her pregnancy, according to husband Francois-Henri Pinault, who revealed this on the stand during the court battle over child support with supermodel Linda Evangelista, with whom he has a son.
While it must suck that the world finds out about such an intimate detail that you obviously wanted to keep under wraps, the way we did, I can only imagine how tough this must have been for Salma because worrying about the possibility of having a baby with Down syndrome is something I think pretty much most moms do when they're pregnant. Imagine then been mistakenly told your baby would be born with Down syndrome?
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Pinault says they had been told the baby had Down sydrome until late May 2007, but when Valentina was born in September, it was obvious that it had been a misdiagnosis. Salma, who became a mom at 41, never hid the fact that she had a difficult pregnancy, including suffering from gestational diabetes. But she had never said anything about the worries she had her daughter could have been born with Down syndrome. ¡Pobrecita!
In my own case, I never had any reason to believe I had a higher risk of having a baby with Down syndrome. The screening tests I got done during both my pregnancies confirmed that. But those are screening test, not diagnostic ones. In order to get an actual diagnosis, I would've had to get an amniocentesis or a chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and I was not willing to do that.
While some people say I would've probably changed my mind had the screening tests come back positive, I know that's not the case. The truth is that I didn't really want to face the question of what I would do if I was told I'd be having a baby with Down syndrome. My opinion had nothing to do with whether I think abortion is right or not, it just had to do with being a chicken and not wanting to face such a difficult decision.
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It might sound totally immature and irresponsible, but I figured that if I was going to have a baby with Down syndrome, I'd much rather find out after the birth — just like it used to be before.
What do you think? Did you worry about this while you were pregnant? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Image via The Grosby Group
