My husband (30m) and I (29f) may start trying to conceive in about a year or within the year.

My husband’s mother has a twin sister, and her daughter/my husband’s first cousin was born with an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, a certain and rare type of muscular dystrophy. From age 3, she started to decline rapidly and shortly thereafter was not able to walk, talk, communicate, etc. until she sadly passed away in her 20s.

I work in healthcare, and I have a very strong opinion on quality of life. As much as we love my husband’s cousin, and although her family took extremely good care of her, the truth is that she unfortunately was bed bound for a lot of her life. My husband and I both agree that quality of life is very important to us, and this would be something that we would not want if we had the means to control.

My husband has ALWAYS wanted to be a father and is very excited about trying to conceive. I have always tended to look at pregnancy/parenthood with a lot of logic, so evidently I do have concerns and I believe pre-conception genetic testing is the right thing to do. My husband also has family history of hemophilia (which is not a huge deal but would be great to know ahead of time!) and I know I have family history of some genetic-related cancers.

I’ve brought genetic testing up to him, and he shrugged it off stating he’d rather “not know ahead of time.” I worry that his desire to be a parent, excitement, and the emotionality has taken the steering wheel and logic may have gone out the door.

WIBTA if I got genetic testing done on myself to see if I am a carrier for any genetic disorders that may be detrimental, and then readdress it with him if it is recommended to screen him to ensure we are not carriers of the same mutated gene? That way we could explore further options moving forward?

Thanks in advance.