Wednesday, November 14, 2012

18 weeks

So these past few days have been really hard.
I got a call last Wednesday from my OBGYN's office telling me that the test for down syndrome came back positive. They told me not to worry too much because it is not a diagnosis, it is just a screening test, so they don't know for sure; however I needed to see the genetic counselor and have a detailed sonogram of the babies at the Clinic for High Risk Pregnancies (I am high risk because of my age = 36 and because of the fact that I am having twins). Needless to say, I was devastated.
They scheduled my appointment for the 13th (yesterday), so for a week I stressed about the fact that something may be wrong with the babies. It was awful. I felt like I had this huge weigh on my chest and I felt sick to my stomach at all times. I didn't even gained any weight this past week...
Anyway, so I went for the scan, with tears in my eyes and feeling so scared to find out something was wrong in there. My husband couldn't get out of work, which made things even worse to my state of mind. The genetics counselor was very nice. She explained how they came up with the numbers they did (after getting my blood tests), and why I was at a higher risk. The number I got was 1:165 chance that the babies have DS. She said that for my age, they consider the risk of a woman having a baby with DS was 1:82 (she showed me the chart), so after my blood tests came back with certain protein levels abnormal, they come up with a new risk value. In my case the risk actually went down (1:165 chance) but still higher than the median which is 1:270. So I had to get the sonogram of the babies, and then I had to make a decision based on that whether or not to have amniocentesis done. I am scared of the fact that amniocentesis has a 1 in 200 chance of ending up in miscarriage. I don't even want to think about that, so I knew I would decline it even after the scan wasn't normal.
So doctor saw the babies, they looked at their heart, their kidneys, stomach, lungs, brain, they measured their legs, their arms, their heads, their spine. The scan took about an hour. After the scan the doctor said that he didn't see anything abnormal with the babies anatomy but that the scan doesn't give you 100% accuracy of a negative DS result, and that the only thing I could do to have 100% assurance that the babies are ok, is to have amniocentesis done. I remembered that the scan I had done at 12 weeks where the nuchal translucency screening came back normal so I decided to just leave it at that. I was happy knowing they were ok and I have huge faith in God that the babies will be just perfect when they are born. And even if the babies have some sort of problem, I wouldn't terminate this pregnancy and I would love them just as much when they are born. After all, God doesn't give you something you cannot handle. I keep praying...

So the fun part of the scan, besides seeing my babies, was that we found out what we are having: the scan revealed that we are having 2 BOYS!!!!!!

We are so happy!!! Husband was thrilled when he found out :) we couldn't be more blessed! <3

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