Yes, for all the choosing Gwen would do over lifetimes it’s interesting she picked a photo at least a decade old to represent Claire. Claire was sorta cute up until age five or six. Imagine a sixteen year old dying in a car crash and the family posting their kindergarten photo in the memorial.
I think Claire being “cute” and like a very inert baby made her decide going ahead with Lola was a good idea. (Claire was four when Gwen got pregnant again) I think had Gwen knew what the future held for Claire she might have made a different decision when told Lola was also microcephalic. But to abort Lola would have been admitting Claire was a mistake, which was intolerable to Gwen.
Gwen could never make peace with the fact that any human would chose for their child not to suffer devastating disabilities. The Hooligans aren’t “perfect” just as they are, they are profoundly fucked up and it kept their quality of life to zero. Gwen’s desperation to spin it as just normal kids with “super powers” was a bizarre facade to invent. I think she did it to give her life meaning.
We know how committed to the sassy teen stuff she was in SM but I wonder if the same held true in her real life. I think she was terrified of admitting that she and the girls might have been better off if they had never being born. I think even having the thought scared her so much or made her feel so guilty she doubled down on it being the best, most wonderful thing and it was her mission to convince herself and the rest of the world of this narrative.