Every time I have an ultrasound and am reassured that baby is fine, growing perfectly and not missing any limbs, I have a sort of honeymoon period of utter relaxation and confidence which lasts about 5 or 6 days before I start worrying again. I spill the beans to a few more people, only to regret it when the honeymoon is over and wish that I hadn't told anyone, because what if everything goes wrong?
Anyway I am now in that happy honeymoon place, as I had an OB appointment and u/s yesterday (15 weeks), and yes, everything is looking great. Ok, the placenta is still too close to the cervix, but doc said it's minor and I really shouldn't worry about it. It's not worse than before, so I'll take it. I can't even describe what it does for my peace of mind when I see the little mite stretching, waving and practice chewing, and it makes me so grateful to be living in this century with all its technological possibilities.
The other thing I haven't written about yet is our NT scan and bloods. The NT ultrasound looked perfect, measurements showed very low risk and the nasal bone was seen, etc. But when I got my blood results back they combined to give me a 1:60 risk of Downs syndrome, which is considered high risk. At my age it should be around 1:230. So the question is, what to do now? This is a very tricky one, and I know a lot of people have strong positions on this, but here goes. We haven't made any absolute decision, but I think that if we had a definite diagnosis of Downs, we would probably terminate. I'm not even going to get into the whole discussion of why or why not here, and I hope people will not ask me to. But basically, we have had two completely opposite pieces of advice from our health care professionals about what we should do. Our RE, who ordered the tests in the first place, advises us to go ahead and have an amniocentesis. Our OB, on the other hand, does not trust the blood test results, says they give a lot of false positives, and says if you compare the supposed risk of Downs (1:60) to the risk of losing the baby in the amnio (1:50 or 2 %), the risk of losing the baby is greater, so he would not recommend the amnio. It's a good point. So, do we risk having a baby with Downs that we would otherwise have terminated, or do we risk losing a potentially perfectly healthy baby in the amnio? I think what we have decided to do is to do the triple test, which should give us a slightly more accurate measure of the probability, and based on that decide whether to do the amnio or not. So the triple test will be in a week, and my present honeymoon period will surely be well and truly over by then.
As for the gender of the baby, the OB gave us a 99% prediction yesterday. But I'm going to make you wait until I know for sure!
Anyway I am now in that happy honeymoon place, as I had an OB appointment and u/s yesterday (15 weeks), and yes, everything is looking great. Ok, the placenta is still too close to the cervix, but doc said it's minor and I really shouldn't worry about it. It's not worse than before, so I'll take it. I can't even describe what it does for my peace of mind when I see the little mite stretching, waving and practice chewing, and it makes me so grateful to be living in this century with all its technological possibilities.
The other thing I haven't written about yet is our NT scan and bloods. The NT ultrasound looked perfect, measurements showed very low risk and the nasal bone was seen, etc. But when I got my blood results back they combined to give me a 1:60 risk of Downs syndrome, which is considered high risk. At my age it should be around 1:230. So the question is, what to do now? This is a very tricky one, and I know a lot of people have strong positions on this, but here goes. We haven't made any absolute decision, but I think that if we had a definite diagnosis of Downs, we would probably terminate. I'm not even going to get into the whole discussion of why or why not here, and I hope people will not ask me to. But basically, we have had two completely opposite pieces of advice from our health care professionals about what we should do. Our RE, who ordered the tests in the first place, advises us to go ahead and have an amniocentesis. Our OB, on the other hand, does not trust the blood test results, says they give a lot of false positives, and says if you compare the supposed risk of Downs (1:60) to the risk of losing the baby in the amnio (1:50 or 2 %), the risk of losing the baby is greater, so he would not recommend the amnio. It's a good point. So, do we risk having a baby with Downs that we would otherwise have terminated, or do we risk losing a potentially perfectly healthy baby in the amnio? I think what we have decided to do is to do the triple test, which should give us a slightly more accurate measure of the probability, and based on that decide whether to do the amnio or not. So the triple test will be in a week, and my present honeymoon period will surely be well and truly over by then.
As for the gender of the baby, the OB gave us a 99% prediction yesterday. But I'm going to make you wait until I know for sure!
We decided against any sort of testing for downs.
ReplyDeleteAfter we had worked so hard for this miricle of life no matter what we
would love and cherish this human.
Our son.
Everyone has there owns views.
Although I disagree with many I'm not one to call up on it.
You know what is right you.
Its great to hears the baby is doing so well.
15weeks already. Time really is flying,
One whole month with no update - Hope your doing ok?.
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