I hope so too, but I hope if his new wife comes to him and confesses she fears she might end their children’s’ lives, this time his response to her won’t be to “take a bath.”
I’m sorry and I know this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I just have a hard time finding a lot of sympathy for him when, during his testimony, he talked about two occasions where she literally confessed her fears to him that she was having thoughts of killing their kids and on both occasions, his response was to suggest she take a bath to relax. I feel he has some responsibility in this devastating outcome as well.
I don’t know what their relationship was. These girls were Graham’s biological daughters, it was Lauren who had to use donors’ eggs. I know several families who are in a horrible shape because of several failed IVFs, and yet when I ask why they can’t consider adopting, I sometimes hear from the guys that they want to raise, “own genes”, or such. So I always wonder if men could be more of the driving force behind these horrible multiple IVF trails.
And we all know that medications used for IVF can, and very easily, do cause severe mood swings. And then the Dickasons had that pregnancy that they lost at 18 weeks, and Lauren held her dead baby, Sarah. After that she was diagnosed with PTSD and postnatal depression. She never returned to work as an independent pediatrician, but assisted Graham in his clinic part-time. I suspect she emotionally broke there.
And then Lauren had three children, and was very depressed during her pregnancy with the twins. It seems to me that her body was whipped into this endless baby-producing mode, and whatever happened with her brain, everyone brushed aside. Graham had a well-paid job, and Lauren had a nanny, but only part-time because of the COVID. I think she was physically exhausted and overwhelmed.
And yes, when she decided to get off meds to emigrate, and wrote in her diary that she had homicidal urges, he told her to get a grip. He is a doctor, he can’t say that he didn’t understand.
I think that the relationship was going down the drain, but Graham had the way out, his job, and Lauren had only the house with three kids.
This being said, I can’t blame Graham either, because I think that Lauren was a difficult, “heavy”, “rigid” person to live with. Maybe he wasn’t present in the relationship because it was so much aimed at having babies.
We can just learn that: 1) all women have mood swings during different phases of their cycle, and it is to be expected; 2) women’s bodies are not baby-making machines and even if one views his wife as the incubator, he has to acknowledge that all phases, getting pregnant, pregnancy, delivery, postnatal period, breastfeeding - are hard on a woman’s body. That you can say, “we just had a child”, but it is all on her; 3) that women’s ability to control fertility comes at a harsh price, as birth control pills often affects the mood; 4) while these days women luckily can have equal, well, paid jobs, this part, children, is still largely on them.
IMHO, female biology has to be respected. This tale will eventually enter history as not that of “an evil mom”. There are too many victims here. And too many doctors, starting with IVF specialists, either made a mistake or perhaps were trying to be too nice to colleagues.