Parents' Experience of Time Distortion Following Diagnosis of a Serious or Lethal Fetal Anomaly

PURPOSE: To explore the experience of couples who continued pregnancy following a diagnosis of serious or lethal fetal anomaly.

STUDY DESIGN: Thirty-one male and female participants were recruited from a high-risk maternal– fetal medicine clinic in Washington State. Data were collected using in-depth interviews during pregnancy and after the birth of their baby. Transcribed interviews were thematically analyzed through the phenomenological lens of Merleau-Ponty.

FINDINGS: Participants described how time became reconfigured and reconstituted as they tried to compress a lifetime of love for their future child into a limited period. Participants' concepts of time became distorted and were related to their perceptual lived experience rather than the schedule-filled, regimented, linear clock time that governed the health professionals.

CONCLUSION: Living in distorted time may be a mechanism parents use to cope with overwhelming and disorienting feelings when their unborn baby is diagnosed with a fetal anomaly.