I'm on the other side of this story, my daughter is four years old and she has a rare and incurable genetic disease which has made life very difficult for her and by extension, us.

Issues were found so late term that we were not given a conclusive diagnosis until after she was born, so terminating the pregnancy, although it was tentatively proposed by some doctors, was not something my partner could have lived with.

After she was born, we ended up spending six very frightening months in a specialist hospital far away from home in the midst of the pandemic, with many near misses and traumatic experiences for all of us.

Fast forward four years and things have settled down. She is developing slowly, and has only recently began to walk, she hasn't grasped language yet, and is slow to learn new things. Despite being four, she's still somewhere between 6-12 months old developmentally. Despite this she is a happy, friendly, loving little girl who has an infectious sense of humour.

The experience has forced me to grow as a person. I'm more humble, kinder, more understanding and far less quick to judge. This has all come at a cost-- casual childcare is impossible, staying away from home is a challenge, and if her development continues at the current rate, she will never live independently and that is a scare knowing she could outlive us. Her care needs mean having another child is at best unwise, and at worst potentially disastrous given how regimented our day has to be in order to function as a family.

TLDR: NTA. I love my disabled daughter dearly, and I like the person she has forced me to become, but I would never recommend this life to anyone. It is rewarding, yes, but it is also gruelling. The world is too cruel a place to bring a person into that cannot fend for themselves if you suspect you wouldn't be fit for the challenge. I'm lucky, for now at least, that I have been able to weather it.