"It's a really slim chance, Jack! Odds are, we're going to do the procedure, and there will be no side effects, no miscarriage, no needle damage, no nothing! I think it's important to know whether our babies can SEE or not!" Angela yelled.
"You hear that something has a one in a thousand chance or one in 10,000. But I guess it's like the lottery, right? Someone always wins, you know? That could be us! We could be that one, who, who loses their babies over a procedure that's completely unnecessary! Why would we risk that? So we find out they're blind, then what? It's not going to change anything! When they're born, they're still going to be blind, and they're still going to be ours! I just don't want to risk losing them over something that just won't change anything!" Jack fired back.
They had been sitting at the kitchen table taking turns yelling for 45 minutes.
"We have the opportunity to spare ourselves the stress of wondering if they're blind we had with Michael, and if they are, we have the opportunity to prepare! Why don't you want that?"
"Of course I want that, Ange, but I also want two babies, whether they can see or not. This procedure might take that away from us! It's just not worth it. Nothing is going to be able to prepare us! It's going to be hard whether we expect it or we don't!"
Angela's hard, angry expression softened into pain and misery as she began to sob, "What am I thinking? I'm…. not. I'm not thinking. You're right," She took in a deep breath and slowly let it back out, "Whether we know if they're going to be blind or not won't change anything. I'm just, hanging on to any possibility of them being perfect, which an amnio can show us. But I guess I'm not really thinking about the fact that it can also show us the opposite. Knowing ahead of time that they're blind won't make them any less blind. I think… that you're right. We should just wait and find out when they're born."
Jack stood up and walked around the table. He wrapped his arms around Angela from behind and leaned into her, kissing a line from her collarbone up to her ear.
"Whether our babies are perfect to everyone else or not, they'll be perfect to me; to us. They'll still be our little princesses, even if they don't know what we look like. They'll be able to hear us, and feel our love, and understand all of the things we're going to do to make them the happiest little girls in the world. They won't need sight to know how much we love them. They'll just know."