YouTuber Couple Terminates Pregnancy After Down Syndrome Diagnosis

YouTuber Jesse Rididgeway and wife made difficult decision to terminate pregnancy after Down syndrome diagnosis came out and it was a gut punch. Okay, when the story came out. So gut punch for them. So here's the story. Okay, this was the baby of the YouTuber that apparently came out and they found out and Rob uh Vinnie were they at first celebrating just wise actually ended their pregnancy explaining why in a serious post on YouTuber. Is this the video of them? There it is. This is them celebrating. Yes. Go ahead. They found out that they were pregnant. So, this is them finally got them pregnant. Not that they know the kids down. Okay, go for it. Go ahead.

Okay, read that. There's a faint line right there. Where's the instructions? Okay. Why is this complex? Where's the like pregnant not pregnant one? So, positive two strong lines or a strong line and a faint line. Negative. Positive. Ch. Right. freaking out. Dang, it is. What have you done? I don't. So, what? This is just This is them. No, no, this is finding out. Yeah, they're finding out that she's pregnant. So, what happens next? And then so there's there's a video, Robbie. Uh, this is them, Pat. I don't know what app he's using or I'm sorry, what results he's getting, like how the doctors are sending it, but this is them finding out that the kid has Down syndrome. Not that it's like dying and

it's something bad. It just has Down syndrome. Go ahead. thought we're going to see the result. I have to download the official report. Abnormal insight result consistent with tricom 21. No. What is it? Wait, why are you saying this? No. Let me see. I can't see it. It says abnormal insight result blah showed three chromosome 21 signals consistent with tricommy 21 down syndrome. Genetic counseling is recommended pattern consistent with tricome 21. Okay. By the way that's super tough. That's very tough pass by and there was very and then they announced right there on the video. Well, they're they because there was an ultrasound video

pad when once she started getting to the point, you know, you can see the baby in the womb, which is, you know, uh which they were, you know, that was the baby in there, you know, healthy other than just having Down syndrome. And like Pat, here's my opinion. I know you guys are going to have yours. It's there. They admitted making the decision that it was going to be an inconvenience or they didn't they didn't want to deal with the responsibility that comes with raising a child with Down syndrome. And look, I criticize all these IRL clvicular all these people cuz it's not my kind of content, but th this is something different to record yourself getting the diagnosis, talking about it publicly

than deciding to end to kill that baby's life. To me, it's it's it's horrific to me. To me, this is my opinion, Vincent Oshana's opinion, it's it's selfish. It's horrific. 67% to 85% of pregnancies in the United States with a down syndrome diagnosis are aborted. That's not Listen to me. God does not make mistakes. Every single life has value. Every single one. Okay? The Bible in Psalm 139, Tommy, and you talked about this before. For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. That means God formed this child, okay, and loved that child

before it was even born. A baby with Down syndrome is not a mistake, okay? That child is still fearfully and wonderfully made in the eyes of God. Okay? Maybe, let's just say maybe, because nobody knows the plan, Pat, maybe that child would have been the greatest blessing that these two streamers could have ever received. Maybe God was going to work through them to soften their hearts, strengthen their freaking marriage, inspire other families, Pat, that are dealing with this same thing. Instead, this child is never going to get a chance to breathe.

I don't know if they already had the abortion, Rob, but that child, they chose the fate of that child. Okay? And I know people with Down syndrome, Pat, you know my best friend Arty. He's Armenian. He has Down syndrome. He is one of the happiest, loving, never upset, affectionate, purehearted people I've ever seen in my life. And by the way, I this goes to every single kid with Down syndrome that I've seen. Pat, they're freaking happy. Here's a quick video, guys, of me with my friend Arty. I'm basically introducing him for the first time to his Michael Jackson in the Armenian community. His name is Harut Babu John. Look at the happiness in this kid. Go ahead, Rob. Who's your best friend in the whole world? Who's your best friend?

Look at him. Who's your favorite singer of all? Babujan. Harut, right? All right. Open that door. Go to go inside. This is in Glendale. Pat, you know, you know where this is. Look at this. Harut. Who's there? Look at that. Look at this dude, bro. Harut G. Who's your best? Look at this guy, bro. Oh, do you know who that is? Look, look at how look watch this baby. Look at Har Pat. Look at this. Look at how happy he is. He didn't give me [__] What a gentle guy. My god. Did it out of No. Didn't know me. Didn't know. I just told him the situation through one of my

friends. And guys, yes, uh this comes with challenges. Having a child with Down syndrome has challenges. Nobody's denying that. But guess what? He's still a human be being created in God's image. Okay? life has just as much value as anybody else. And guess what? So, if you truly can't handle it, have the baby, give it up for adoption. There's families out there that are praying every day for freaking children, okay? Families that would love to have a baby uh with everything that they had. So, the whole story, Pat, really, really I was in tears yesterday. I'm happy I got it all out. It broke my heart because this baby is still a blessing even if

the world saw it as a burden. And it really bothered me. And you know, prayers for the I don't again I don't know if they aborted it or not, but to give it to just decide to kill it like that, Pat really it hurt me. It hurt me really bad. What Rob is this them posting the results of what they're getting from people? Yeah, this is the backlash that they received in their so it says I've never seen such hate and vitrol from uh for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision the last 24 hours has exposed a side of humanity that is deeply disturbing being called murderous piece of evil compared to Hitler and receiving non-stop death

threats uh seeing my six-year-old dog and stage four kidney disease be used as a weapon manipulating my words and intent in a tweet or saying will regrets this decision forever and must repent to God is an absolute insanity if you ever wanted to marvel that the depre uh what is that wordity deprevity of people online just check the replies on my latest tweet it's a [__] show of epic proportions keep going okay I'm not a fan of this I don't like this at all I don't like this at all you know so I'll give you my uh side of this few years ago Jennifer and I announced during Thanksgiving that uh Jennifer's pregnant I think you were there I don't know if you were there but I do know you I was there yeah I remember and I announced that uh were pregnant

and then I announced that we're we're expecting twins. And so you have no idea how special of a day it was because I wanted five kids. So this was God's way of saying you're going to get your five kids. And while we're at the hospital, they announce twins. Jennifer's crying. I'm laughing. Just visualize it. I'm laughing so loud and crying cuz she's like, "What the hell are we going to be doing?" Yes. Anyways, we go in, we choose the kids for the boy, but we don't have the name, you know, we have the name for both. Brooklyn and um and Lincoln was his name. So, we go in, you know, 6 weeks, 7th week, 8 week, ninth week. I think it was 10th week or I don't know what the week was, but it was 10 or 11 weeks or nine weeks. You go

in and they say one of them didn't make it. Now, keep in mind, we don't know which one didn't make it. It was very hard when we went through this. We didn't know which one didn't make it. But I'm going to tell you, we've been married now to be 17 years this month, June 26. Our 17 year anniversary is coming up. Do you know for that month of the doctor preparing us that it could be a down syndrome kid and be prepared for it? Do you know how it was sleeping every night, her and I? Like it was challenging. We're watching videos. We're going through the whole process, steps of how the kids are going to react, what's going to happen to you, the all of this. So, by the way, I sympathize for the for these guys. This is a young couple. I

don't know how old they are. They look like they're in their mid20s. I don't know how old they are. Maybe they're in their mid20s, maybe early 30s. They don't look like they're old. And so, while you're going through it, Vinnie, and maybe you don't have faith, you know, you're not somebody that has that in your life. 33 years old. Is that what it is? Yes. 33 years old that they're going through. I don't know their stories at all. So, I don't want to judge these guys. It is a very, very difficult thing to go through. and they made this choice. It's interesting you said that because we have another friend of ours that they had their fourth kid and they called me and they we had a

call together and they said the fourth kid is a you know down syndrome. It's definite and I'm listening to these guys that they're going through it and the father his sister was down syndrome growing up. Okay. And I said, 'L I don't know what God is planning on doing, but maybe the siblings are going to be such good caretakers that's going to cause them to become the types of leaders we don't even know what they're going to do. It's going to take us 40 years to know why God did this. Yeah. Could take us 50 could happen and you're not even here to witness the blessing that he gave. But this is a very difficult thing that this couple's going through. Of course, I don't, you know, whether I agree with the decision or not, it's a

a different thing. I still pray for this family as they're going through this. And I hope they have enough love around them to encourage them while they're going through this. It's very hard to get pregnant and then, you know, 70% of first pregnancies lead to uh miscarriages. And then to have this, I'm sure nobody's in more pain. Uh the baby's no longer here with us. That's of course number one. But then I'm sure they're also going through challenging times. Adam, look, this story uh hits close to home in uh many different ways. Uh my father was born with cerebral palsy. So, every year he would make us go to the Special Olympics. And I remember being like, I don't want to go to the Special

Olympics, Dad. Like, why do I got to be around these people? He's like, son, you're coming. And let me tell you something. You know, when you volunteer for the Special Olympics, you know what you're called? You're called a hugger. Your job is to hug them and give them a hug and say, "Congratulations, you won. You got second place." This is me giving out medals at the Special Olympics, too. Now, my buddies run the Special Olympics. Um, you don't use the volume. But look, being around these kids who have all different types of challenges, whether it's Down syndrome, whether it's muscular drophe, whe there's all the

different issues out there. The smiles on these kids' faces when they get a medal. Rob, if you could play that first video, it's hilarious. The smile on these kids' faces and these young people's faces, it makes their day. And it teaches you empathy and it teaches you compassion. This guy's hilarious. And it gives you character and you realize, oh my god, life is precious and life is beautiful and you don't know what you're going to get. Believe me. Um, there's more I can say about that later, but the Special Olympics teaches you to have compassion and have heart. And for this these this

young couple, I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this. I hope you make a decision to not have an abortion. I don't know if they did that yet. They did. That pains me to see, but uh the twist on this, Vinnie, you're a comedian. You know, I did comedy for a little while. Nothing is as funny as having a good time with these guys. The best and you just it puts a smile on your face and uh I wish more people understood the pain that comes with stuff like this, but also the joy.

Tom, I'll tell you, I see this on three angles. And first of all, to those of you that spew vitriol at these folks, shame on you. That is not the way to respond. uh the way to respond is with love and compassion and reminding them that God is in charge and this would not be God's decision. And reminding them that the God that loves them and loves his child, that's where it is. But to spew the profanity and the vitriol, that's just so out of bounds. You're not going to accomplish anything. What are you accomplishing? You're accomplishing nothing for the God you claim to represent when you do it like that. And I'll tell you, we saw some of this. Um the uh obstatrician when uh Kim

was pregnant with um Brooke did a great job of scaring the hell out of us because, you know, Kim was 40, you know. So they did a just an incredible job of just scaring the bees out of us. Oh, we need to do this, we need to do this, we do this until we found one doctor that said, none of these tests are 100% accurate. These are also all possibilities and that's why you see that guy reading and he said this is consistent with Down syndrome. Well, maybe it's 95%, maybe it's 92%, maybe it's 85%. Who knows? But that just means that there's a 2, three, five, 15% chance this is a normal regular kid with normal capabilities. So, you might be taking out a child with normal capabilities because the test is consistent, not 100%. And then the other

side of it, what you just said is so beautiful, Adam, and what you showed in the video, your friend is so beautiful. The disabled children of life teach the rest of us kindness and they teach the rest of us to get off the vitriol. When you don't know the learning that you go through as a parent, we went through it. Brooke, when she started to speak, she had a kind of a lisp and Pat used to joke with her, "Are you from Boston?" And she had a little bit of a lip. She had a tough time with it because her tongue and her pallet, they weren't working the way they should. Boss, by the way, and then the doctor, a boss. And then the doctor says, "Hey, we're looking at the scan of your 2-year-old here. I think you need to consider

cranial orthosis." We're like, "What? I think the skull was malformed and not working right. we may have to do a surgery to reform. And then you see the kids that wear these little padded helmets for about six months to shape it. And I said, "Okay, that's fine. But what's happening inside that cause that?" Well, it could be this, could be that, could be this. Again, scared the hell of you. You know what? Two words came across our minds. Love, work. We love and it's time to get to work. We either need to learn about everything and be the kind of parents to help other people with it. and but the love's not going away and we're not making any decisions cuz we're not God and we're going to get to work and do

everything we could and Brooke turned out just fine. It turns out it wasn't cranial orthosis. But at that moment, we're wondering, are we going to be part of a group of parents that have to do these things? And Brook's fine, straight A student right now. And we're blessed by that. Video. Yeah. Blessed by that. And I think let's let's celebrate and learn from every member of society. Not sit there and say, "Oh, we're going to handpick and we're going to be God." I love these comments that are coming in. James uh Shruck, uh, I have a daughter with Downs. She's an angel. I thank God for her every day. She's a

blessing. I love her with everything. Uh yeah, it's great. You're seeing some of these commentary that's coming through because pe people have gone through this. There's something about this story here. And like for instance, Pat, like look at how beautiful this relationship is. These two brothers, I sent it to Rob, Biffin and Turner. Turner's diagnosed with Down syndrome on the right and he wants to be like his big brother. Look how beautiful this brother is in this moment about What's your favorite thing about Turner? Look, makes me laugh. That he's my brother. Look at that, dude. It's awesome. Look, it makes me feel good to have a brother like him.

I love you. Look at how freaking adorable because make me laugh. I love this video. Yeah. Start crying. I mean, he hugs, he goes. No. Looks Look, man. Life is challenging. Life is hard, especially for a husband and wife when you guys are going through the process of wanting to have kids. It's a let me tell you, nobody prepares you for this. There's not like seriously like no one prepares you on how the roller coaster ride is. And when you're going through it, you think you're the only person that's going through it. This is a very, very difficult thing people go through. Massive news from our friend here, Vinnie. Massive news that

you guys have been waiting for. Go ahead, Vinnie. Well, thank you, Pat. Uh the black the hat that I'm wearing right now, I'm going to take it off. My hair is going to be messed up, is the new Faith Over Fear black and gold. We have our shield here. And I'm talking about gold stitching. Like act like not real goldick, but look at how ridiculous that is. Gold in the back snapback with the Hebrews. Our crosses on the inside. And I'm telling you guys right now, Pat, I wore this hat to uh breakfast with Hombberto and a older lady, 80 years old, uh her name was Amy. She grabs me. She's like, "I want that hat." And I felt so bad cuz I couldn't give it. I couldn't I'm like, "I got a pitch for the podcast." And Pat, she went on

the story for 20 minutes. Ask him. He's he's my witness about her cancer and beating it and having faith and her she was so calm. Tom saying that she's like even if I didn't I still have faith that God would take care of me. It was an emotional b I forgot that we're even eating breakfast. But this I'm telling you besides just a hat. It's it's it's a conversation starters letting people know. I can't tell you how many times in that same diner pad I'm sitting there at the counter and there's a congregation. People are telling their stories. So this hat is out right now. People have been asking for it and the white and black just got restocked. We sold out on this hat in 9 hours, Pat. So, everybody

out there, please, I want to say thank you number one. Number two, go to vtmmerch.com. These I guarantee you this is going to be sold out in two days. Get on vtmerch.com and get them cuz people message me on Instagram and they're like, "Hey, what? Why didn't you?" They're sick. The hat's sick. The sweater sick, the hoodie sick, the shirts, the whole and go to church on Sunday with it represent. If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here. And if you want to watch the entire podcast, click here.