For many expectant parents, reaching approximately 12 weeks of pregnancy is the moment when they finally feel comfortable telling friends, relatives or coworkers that a baby is coming.
For Charli, that stage could also mean preparing for invasive prenatal testing.
The Reality Behind Prenatal Genetic Testing
During her pregnancy, Charli underwent chorionic villus sampling, commonly known as CVS.
CVS is a diagnostic prenatal procedure in which a small sample of cells from the placenta is collected and analyzed. It can be used to test for certain genetic or chromosomal conditions when there is a known or suspected risk.
Unlike a routine ultrasound or blood test, CVS is invasive.
Depending on the position of the placenta and other medical considerations, the sample can be collected through the abdomen or through the cervix. The procedure is generally performed under ultrasound guidance.
For Charli, the experience represented something emotionally significant.
At roughly the same point when many expectant parents were celebrating the end of the first trimester, she was waiting for a medical procedure that could provide information capable of changing the entire course of her pregnancy.
She described undergoing a needle procedure through her abdomen to obtain placental tissue for genetic testing.
She also wrote about the risk of miscarriage associated with CVS.
Medical estimates of that risk have changed as techniques and evidence have improved. Current guidance from Britain's National Health Service estimates the chance of miscarriage following CVS at less than one in 200 for most singleton pregnancies, although individual risk can vary and should always be discussed with the medical team performing the procedure.
For Charli, however, statistics could not remove the emotional weight of the experience.
Testing meant waiting.
And waiting meant living with the possibility that the pregnancy might not end with bringing a baby home.
Waiting for an Answer
Pregnancy is often described as a period filled with anticipation.
There are ultrasound photographs, discussions about names, tiny clothes and predictions about which parent the baby might resemble.
But genetic uncertainty can transform anticipation into something far more complicated.
Charli explained publicly that she was waiting to learn whether she would be able to welcome her child in March 2021 or whether the pregnancy's journey might end earlier.
That statement captured something easily lost when people discuss genetic conditions only in terms of percentages.
Behind every probability is a family waiting for an answer.
For Charli and Cullen, prenatal genetic testing was not simply an academic exercise. It was information about their child and potentially about decisions no parent hopes to face.
Charli said that if testing had identified the combination doctors believed would be fatal, she would have been faced with deeply personal choices about whether to continue the pregnancy.
She did not present that possibility casually.
Instead, her post attempted to show followers why becoming pregnant had never been a simple decision for her and Cullen.
Facing Criticism for Choosing Parenthood
Sharing intimate details of family life with a large online audience inevitably exposes people to opinions they never asked for.
Charli acknowledged receiving criticism for choosing to have biological children despite knowing there were genetic risks.
It is an ethically complicated subject, and one that cannot be reduced to a social-media comment.
Genetic counseling exists partly because families facing inherited conditions need accurate information rather than judgment.
For example, GeneReviews explains that once the genetic variant responsible for geleophysic dysplasia has been identified in a family, prenatal testing and preimplantation genetic testing may be possible.
Genetic counselors and medical specialists can help prospective parents understand inheritance patterns, possible outcomes and reproductive options. But those professionals do not live the family's life for them.
Ultimately, decisions about pregnancy involve medical information combined with personal values, circumstances and individual choices.
Charli wanted people criticizing her family to understand that she and Cullen were not unaware of the genetics involved.
Quite the opposite.
They were acutely aware of them.
Their pregnancies involved testing, specialist appointments, difficult conversations and periods of uncertainty invisible in a cheerful photograph posted online.
Her message to people questioning their decisions was fundamentally a request for empathy.