Today we went for our important doctor's appoinment. It was at 9:10 a.m. and we had to meet with a genetic counselor first. She told us how the found the risk for Downs Syndrome, and explained in depth to us about the way they come up with a number for risk. She said that someone my age should have a risk factor of about 1/1000 of a baby with DS or better. My risk was 1/200. (The good news, was our Trisomy 13/18 risk was 1/32,000.) The way she explained it, is they take the NT measurement (mine was 2.3) and the Crown Rump Length and find where it corresponds in the percentiles of "normal" or "average." She said with a CRL of 56, and a NT of 2.3 our percentile is about 93%, and average is being 50%. The other two tests they do are proteins in the blood, and I only remember what one of them was called, Beta HCG. My percentile of that was 60%, normal being 50%. The other protein, which I can't remember the name, normal being 50%, we found ourselves in the 10%. That raised the risk to 1/200. That's my non-doctor way of interpretting it, at least.
Next, she talked to us about family medical history. She asked about Hailee, and about Summer, Leo's baby sister. Asked about their health, and what not.
Hailee and Summer are both happy healthy babies, Summer's complications were related to her mother, which is Leo's step-mother, so that doesn't affect us at all. (Pre-eclampsia, c-section, 5 week early delivery).
She asked if we would like to do another blood test that day to help adjust the risk of DS, and we said no, we'd just like to get the amniocentesis, we want to know a definitive "Yes, my baby has DS" or "No, my baby does NOT have DS." She asked how much we knew about the procedure, and showed us a diagram of what it will actually look like being done. She said that we could have it done today, if the two fluid sacks around baby fuse, but if they haven't we'd reschedule.
She told us we'd be having an ultrasound to check on the baby, and to see how he or she was doing, because that could help to adjust the chance of downs syndrome. She said if everything went well and baby looked good, it could be lowered to as much as 1/700 chance of DS versus our now 1/200.
We head back for the ultrasound, and all goes well. The woman performing it asked if we'd like to know the sex if it was visible. We said "Yes!" A minute later, she adjusts the transducer, and we see two legs and a butt on a screen. And a penis. "THATS A BOY!"
She said that she guarantees it's a boy, because he was spread wide-eagle and it was definately out-there.
She continued taking pictures of the heart, spine, and brain, and counting fingers, and toes. (10 of each!)
The Doctor who was going to perform the amnio came in and told us that we *Could* have the amnio today, at a much greater risk of pregnancy loss because the fluid sacks were not formed. We didn't want to do that, and she said that in 10 days they'll be good to go. We made the appointment for 11 days from today, 10/27/09.
She also gave us great news, the baby looked great, and the odds of him having downs syndrome decreased to 1/650. GREAT!
So, we have a boy. A boy who's looking great, and has 10 fingers, 10 toes. He's handsome, and Mommy and Daddy love him very much. The amniocentesis will be in 11 days and we'll know for sure, if our little boy has Downs Syndrome or not.
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