TFMR Is Not a Choice: Reframing Guilt and Grief After Termination for Medical Reasons

When I hear the word “choice” in the context of TFMR, I wince. It lands wrong. It’s too casual, too clean. “Choice” sounds like something you make quickly:
this or that, yes or no. A selection from a menu.

But when the pregnancy you’re carrying is nothing like you dreamed, what comes next is not a simple choice.

Still, the word became something I used against myself. “I chose this pain”. “I chose this ending”. I told myself I didn’t get to call this a loss. Loss is something that happens to you. Mothers who lose their babies don’t have a choice.

And because I believed I chose this, I told myself I didn’t deserve to grieve.

Then one day, sitting across from someone, their hands gently clasped, their eyes steady on mine, they said: “You didn’t choose this. You decided.”

The word landed differently.

A decision holds weight. It allows for time, for information, for knowledge, for care.

The word decide comes from the Latin decidere:to cut off.

I cut off the possibility of suffering for my son. I ensured he would not live out the worst-case scenario. I took on the pain so that he would never have to.

I didn’t make a casual choice. I made a decision with everything I had- with logic, with love, with information, with fear, with grief already living in my body.

And in that shift, I began to understand: This was never about choosing an easy path. There wasn’t one. There was only a decision; made in the middle of love, loss, and heartbreak. And for the first time, I allowed myself to grieve it as a loss.