Thank you for your encouragement. I just feel so overwhelmed with emotion and the decision I have to make. I don't feel like I am that old. When I first found out I was pregnant, the General Practitioner who I saw pretty much put me in high risk category from the very beginning based purely on my age. I had a bleed at 7 weeks gestation which he said and I quote "Was always going to happen, seeing as you are at high risk due to your age". I left his practice and moved straight away onto a shared care practice which was a lot more supportive and did not look down on me for starting a family so late.
It is because of my first experience with the first doctor that I am so against invasive testing that may prove to be unnecessary and could possibly result in miscarrying my baby girl. The hospital that I picked to have my baby at and all my antenatal care at is supposed to be the best in Adelaide. However, it is also known for overtesting everybody who receives pregnancy and birth care there. I have discussed all my options with my partner and we have decided together that we will do every bit that we can to monitor her growth, which will be from four weekly scans and also an echo of her heart, but no more than that. I don't see the need to do an amnio. I still believe she is fine, I just want to enjoy my first pregnancy and not be forever worried that something is wrong. The nurse's phone call yesterday was completely surprising, seeing as my own shared care doctor told me I had nothing to worry about. Anyway, thank you for everyone's encouragement and information. I do appreciate it.
How are you doing Barbi??? I live in oz too..I'm in brissy..I saw my Ob today and she wanted to know what I'm doing whether i do an amnio or not? Plus was offered a harmony prenatal blood test...I just am in two minds..i have a 1 in 111 chance of a DS.. I have put it to the back of my mind the lats two weeks but it came home to me again today...
I just dunno what to do
I am doing fine Tess, thank you for asking. I'm based in Adelaide. Your chance of having a DS baby are quite low if not almost negative. What you want to do (amnio or not) is very much up to you and the father of the baby, not up to your OB. It sounds to me like your OB is very keen on finding out for you, regardless of what your wishes are. My chances of having a DS baby is higher with 1 in 26 chance, plus the echogenic focus on top means I am even higher.
When I went to see the Registrar at the hospital I will have the baby in, his first question was "what have you been told so far?" I truly appreciated how he approached my situation (so did my partner) and we just told him what we had been told (including the fact that the nurse who rang me from the hospital two days before the appointment told me that with both factors my chances for a DS baby was more like 1 in 13. He screwed up his face at that, a bit like she shouldn't have told me any such thing because we would need to do further testing and invasive testing at that to determine what my fresh chances are. She just pulled a number out of her head. We made it quite clear that we are not doing an amnio as we are keeping her whether she has any problems or not.
We have told him that we are not doing any further testing, other than four weekly ultrasound scans and we have also discovered that my dates have been all screwed up (dates of gestation) which basically means that when I had my 15 April scan last (where they found the echogenic focus in the heart), it was way too early for that scan to be accurate as you need to be somewhere between 19 and 22 weeks at that stage for it to be more close to the mark. Therefore we are having another morphology scan in a few weeks time, which will give me a better idea whether there is anything really to worry about.
I truly believe in my heart and in my gut that there is nothing wrong with her, and if there is we will face it together. At my age I can not afford to abort her if she turns out to have anything as that would be the case every time we get pregnant. We want to have two.
On the plus side, when we went in to see the Registrar, there was a student midwife with him sitting in on the appointment. She will now be my midwife when I attend most of my appointments as well as be there for the birth. She has made me feel so much better, as we have been trying to find a midwife who we can keep in touch with and ask any questions from, so that I don't always have to ring or attend on my GP for any questions I have. She also measured my blood pressure, which was good, plus used the doppler machine to hear the baby's heart beat, which my partner had never heard before. All was really well, and yesterday I think I felt her kick for the first time, it felt a bit like having a heart beat a few times in the same spot, then it stopped as soon as I put my hand there. Anyway, I have waffled on for too long as usual, I am hopeless at keeping these posts short.
One quick question, what is a harmony blood test? I was told by the Registrar that the blood test they took in my week 12 tests are a lot more accurate than a second trimester test that can be performed later if you wish to do more testing. I decided not to do either the second trimester blood test or an amnio.
sounds good. I was just letting you know what I would be doing in my case being that Im going through it. Im not afraid of downs either. I just wanted to make sure that my baby has the proper care and will do all the noninvasive testing they offer. I cant waitto see all the scans I get. . WIth your levels I would have to say in my feelings that your baby is just fine to 
