While most married couples are asked “when,” Charli Worgan and her husband Cullen were often asked “why.”
Due to their distinct types of dwarfism, the Sydney-based parents are regularly in the media spotlight—Charli’s pregnancy with their first child being one of their most memorable moments.
The happy Australian mother set up a social media account to provide people with updates on their family life after giving birth to their first child. She had no idea how popular her account would go.
After giving birth to two gorgeous girls, Charli accumulated more than 300,000 Instagram followers.
Recently, Charli disclosed that she was fourteen weeks along with her third kid, but the news was not all joyful.
Every time Charli became pregnant, she had to go through extensive genetic testing. Experts caution that the consequences might be severe if Charli and Cullen’s children inherit either one or both types of dwarfism, or if they are averagely tall owing to their genetic issues.
Charli said she was disappointed because, unlike other moms, she was unable to celebrate her pregnancy’s 12-week milestone with her family.
When most people are happy to be able to announce their pregnancy, at 12 weeks I was getting ready for a procedure called Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS), which is comparable to an amniocentesis. A large needle is inserted into my abdomen to remove a sample of the placenta, which has a 2% miscarriage rate, in order to analyze the genetic makeup of the embryo.
After learning that Charli’s third child may have one of the four potential dwarfisms, they waited to find out which of their two girls, Tilba, 4, and Tully, 2, would have it.
Charli clarified, writing, “Our child would be of ordinary height,” in an Instagram post.
Like me, our child would be dwarfed due to achondroplasia.
The same kind of dwarfism that Cullen has, geleophysic dysplasia, would affect our child.
Our child would be born with “double dominant dwarfism,” which is deadly based on every professional medical assessment, as a result of inheriting both genetic abnormalities. If this had happened, I could have chosen to end the pregnancy or to carry it out and see how things worked out.
