I am writing my story here as i wanted to share it with other expectant parents. This forum gave me much hope and faith in what were my darkest hours of my pregnancy, and i wanted to try and give something back. Let me start at the beginning:
My husband and i decided that we would go for the Nuchal fold test at 12 weeks as we wanted to put our minds to rest and assure ourselves that our baby was healthy. To be honest it was as simple as that initially, we never thought for a second that the results would be anything other than 'normal'.
The sonographer told us that all looked fine and our fold measured 2.1mm - nothing to worry about. I then had the bloods done, and went away happy as a lamb. When i called up for the results a week or so later i was told that they had come back as 'High risk', in fact the Downs test came back as 1 in 9. Edwards and Patau slightly higher but all 3 were classified in the 'High risk' category.
We were devastated and spent the next few days and nights in tears, and asking how could this be (There is nothing genetically in our family - now i know that this is not necessarily genetic) In my darkest hours my only coping strategy was to think the worst in order to prepare myself for what i thought would be the inevitable....
I then went for the amnio - i felt like i had to know and could not go through the next few months in a constant void of questions that we did not have the answers to. I had to wait until i was 15 weeks for the amnio, and i was petrified. But i have to say that the procedure itself was fine, and not nearly as awful as i had imagined. In fact it was really reassuring to see the baby. We asked all of the questions about soft markers - nasal bone, dilated kidney's, femur length - and were advised that these are not 100% accurate but only indicators. They can however reduce your risk by up to 50% if they are all in the normal/mean range - which ours were
Today - almost 5 days later the PCR initial report came back and its all ok, baby has tested negative for all of the chromosomes for Downs, Edwards, Patau. Clearly we need to wait for the full set of results but so far so good - and they only ever tested for these abnormalities in the first instance
My only reason for sharing this and giving a detailed and intimate view of our world, is to give hope to those that may find themselves in the same position. This test is and can only ever be a risk assessment - its not a definitive answer, the only way to get that certainty is from the amnio.
My husband and i decided that we would go for the Nuchal fold test at 12 weeks as we wanted to put our minds to rest and assure ourselves that our baby was healthy. To be honest it was as simple as that initially, we never thought for a second that the results would be anything other than 'normal'.
The sonographer told us that all looked fine and our fold measured 2.1mm - nothing to worry about. I then had the bloods done, and went away happy as a lamb. When i called up for the results a week or so later i was told that they had come back as 'High risk', in fact the Downs test came back as 1 in 9. Edwards and Patau slightly higher but all 3 were classified in the 'High risk' category.
We were devastated and spent the next few days and nights in tears, and asking how could this be (There is nothing genetically in our family - now i know that this is not necessarily genetic) In my darkest hours my only coping strategy was to think the worst in order to prepare myself for what i thought would be the inevitable....
I then went for the amnio - i felt like i had to know and could not go through the next few months in a constant void of questions that we did not have the answers to. I had to wait until i was 15 weeks for the amnio, and i was petrified. But i have to say that the procedure itself was fine, and not nearly as awful as i had imagined. In fact it was really reassuring to see the baby. We asked all of the questions about soft markers - nasal bone, dilated kidney's, femur length - and were advised that these are not 100% accurate but only indicators. They can however reduce your risk by up to 50% if they are all in the normal/mean range - which ours were
Today - almost 5 days later the PCR initial report came back and its all ok, baby has tested negative for all of the chromosomes for Downs, Edwards, Patau. Clearly we need to wait for the full set of results but so far so good - and they only ever tested for these abnormalities in the first instance
My only reason for sharing this and giving a detailed and intimate view of our world, is to give hope to those that may find themselves in the same position. This test is and can only ever be a risk assessment - its not a definitive answer, the only way to get that certainty is from the amnio.
