Earlier this week, Katie Price came under media fire for saying she would have aborted her son Harvey had she known about his disabilities when she was pregnant. Perhaps her honesty shocked a lot of people but living in a country where over 90% of pre-natal Down's Syndrome diagnoses end in abortion, to take one condition as an example, we know that Katie isn't alone.
Perhaps Katie's point could have been articulated better, but when I heard what she had said I knew exactly what she meant.
She meant that she would have been afraid.
That she would have ended her pregnancy based on medical prognosis, ignorance and fear of disability, not knowing the characterful, sweet boy her baby would become. Because, in those circumstances, all too often, that is all a mother has.
Since Orange arrived, I've met and become friends with a lot of other mums of disabled children. A complete cross section of society that I would not have met otherwise. Different backgrounds, different views, but united in our experiences of being parents to disabled children and the world in which we are raising them.
We all adore our children. Knowing the little people that they are and the love we have for them, I don't know a single parent who would wish to turn back time and experience life without their child. That thought is as unpalatable to us as it would be to any parent. Contrary to what some of society may think, our lives would not be better without our disabled children in them.
Before I had Orange I would have mistakenly and quite offensively believed that life with a disabled child would be tragic and terrifying, joyless, isolating and punishing, and that the hardships would far outweigh love. Being frank, I would have believed it to be the end of any life worth living. I would have done anything to avoid it.
But I find myself in an uncomfortable situation in discussions like this because I don't know any other mothers who have experienced quite what I have and it's not something I talk about often.
About a year before we had Orange, I had a termination.
We were told that our baby had heart conditions that were 'incompatible with life' and that there was 'very limited chance of survival'.
Before we even knew the underlying diagnosis (Down's Syndrome) that had caused our baby to be so (apparently) desperately and terminally unwell, I had decided to end the pregnancy.
Because I was afraid.
Afraid of giving birth to a dead baby but even more afraid of what might happen if he lived. I justified my decision based solely on what the medical prognosis had told us. That my baby was probably going to die anyway and if he survived the pregnancy his life would be short and painful.
I was afraid. But I thought I was doing the right thing. For him, for us, for Bea.
If we had never had Orange, I would still believe that the decision I made on 29 January 2010 at four o'clock in the afternoon was the right one. And I would never have questioned that what the medical prognosis told me was correct.
The tears I cried as the theatre team at St Thomas's chirpily asked me 'what procedure are you in for?' while they placed the needle in my hand and the deep relief I felt as the gas washed over me and turned off the world, and drowned my fear for the sick child inside of me, are etched in my heart forever. It felt wrong, in my heart. In my head, I believed I was doing the right thing.
And now?
Now I question that medical prognosis that drove me to have that termination. Now I know too many children, alive, and beating the odds their parents were given. Children, who by all medical accounts should be dead. I question the decision I made. Now I am no longer afraid of disability and now I know that medical prognoses aren't always right, I wish I had let nature take us on whatever path life had in store for us.
Now I count my blessings for Orange. I am thankful every single day of my life that I didn't know when I was pregnant with Orange that he would have disabilities. Because again, I would have made a decision with my head, not my heart.
A decision based on scary lists of symptoms with big medical words like hypotonia, nystagmus and status epilepticus.
A decision based on what I thought I knew about the hardships of disability with no knowledge of the sweet, gentle soul I gave birth to, the easygoing and peaceful baby he was, the cheeky Peppa Pig obsessed toddler he became or the cute and funny almost five year old he is today, with his surf dude blond hair, a divine appreciation for the ridiculous, lover of cuddles, Bert and Ernie, rugby and bananas.
A decision based on things I had no direct experience of but my preconceptions would have told me I couldn't cope with, not allowing even a chink of possibility that life and love would carry me through and leave me stronger and happier on the other side.
A decision based on what I might have mistakenly thought would be best for Bea, with no knowledge of the fierce sibling bond they would develop and the adoration Orange has for his devoted sister.
A decision that, for me, I now know, in both my heart and my head, would have been the wrong one.
This blog post first appeared at Orange This Way where Katherine blogs about her experiences of family life raising her little boy who has an undiagnosed syndrome, and whose nickname is Orange.