Pregnancy #4...The Facts

I haven't been blogging for a long time, and I feel a little sad about that.  So many fun things have been going on with the kids that I have failed to document which was the whole purpose for starting this blog in the first place.  I am going to start playing catch up a bit, and I think this is an appropriate place to start considering this is why I feel off the blogging wagon for a bit.  I am going to start with the facts.  I will get to the feelings in another post.  To go at it with the facts and the emotions all in one post would take me FOREVER to get through.  I will split it up as both the facts and the feelings will be better understood this way.

This pregnancy started off similar to all the others.  Crazy excited, super surprised, a little scared, EXTREMELY nauseated, incredibly lucky, thankful beyond belief.

I picked an OB/GYN based on one of my best friends recommendations.  She really loved this doctor and his office was close to my house and he delivered at the hospital I wanted to deliver at so I was pretty convinced.  Oh, and he did an ultrasound at every appointment which was an added bonus!  Luckily, I had already made an appointment for a checkup months before finding out I was pregnant so I just changed that to a prenatal appointment, and I got in to see him pretty quickly after finding out.  I really liked him straight out of the gate.  He did an ultrasound and we saw a little tiny heartbeat.  I was immediately in love once again.

Skip past the disgusting nausea and a lot of respiratory illness being passed around our house, finding out we were having another baby boy, and a lot of traveling for Scott to my 16 week appointment.  I had an ultrasound, as usual.  Dr. N pointed out that the babies kidney's were slightly enlarged, however, he stressed this was very common in boys.  Me, being the Google M.D. that I am, pushed and pushed him to tell me everything and anything that could be causing the enlarged kidneys.  Hesitantly, he goes through the list which started with nothing at all and ended with Down's Syndrome.  Since this was my 16 week appointment I opted for the Quad Screen blood work that I have opted out of during every other pregnancy.  This blood test is a "screening" not a diagnostic test, which I knew, but I wanted to have it anyway.  Now we wait 7-10 days for results.

I got the call from Dr. N over a week later that my blood work had come back "abnormal."  This screening test gives you a risk factor for having a baby with a specific birth defect.  Everyone my age, race, etc. starts out with a 1/680 chance of having a baby with Down's Syndrome.  My test results returned a risk factor of 1/128 chance of having a baby with DS.  So on we go to the Perinatologist for further testing.

Because I have the best doctor ever, I got in to see the Perinatologist a week (instead of a month) later for a level 2 ultrasound.  I went to this ultrasound knowing that I would not get a yes or no if the baby had DS, and if I wanted to know for sure I could do an amniocentesis after my ultrasound.  After my ultrasound, Dr. B let me know that the ultrasound returned nothing abnormal other than the slightly enlarged kidneys (I don't know exactly what the percentages mean, but normal kidneys are about 28%, our babies were 32%), however with the quad screen results and the enlarged kidneys we were given a 1/64 chance that the baby had DS.  Obviously, I can do math and know that this still gave us less than a 2% chance of having a baby with DS, but I also knew that the odds went from being 1/680 to 1/64.  Dr. B went on to explain that the only way to know with more accuracy was to (1) wait until the baby was born since the outcome of the pregnancy would not change either way, (2) travel to a large city (LA, San Diego, Chicago, etc) for a brand new blood test that was not yet offered in Oklahoma called the MaterniT21, however this would not be covered by my insurance and would probably cost us an arm and a leg but was less invasive and 99% accurate, or (3) have an amniocentesis which poses a risk of miscarriage.  I kept looking at her and looking at Scott wanting someone to tell me what to do.  I knew that knowing wouldn't change how much I already loved my baby, however I have 3 other young children that I want to prepare for their new brother as best as I can.  Finally, Dr. B told me not to decide that day.  To go home and pray/sleep/discuss it and call back and they could schedule me for the anmio if that's what I decided.

We went home and did just that and I decided that I really wanted to know.  I am a planner and a researcher and I wanted to be as prepared as I possibly could be.  I went for my level 2 ultrasound on Tuesday.  On Wednesday I called to make an appointment for the anmio.  They had one opening in the next week and it was the next day.  I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible so I went ahead and made the appointment for the next day.

I went in Thursday (2 days after my initial appointment with Dr. B) to have an amniocentesis (which I was terrified about, but I will get to the feelings later).  I went back into the room and a few minutes later Dr. B comes walking in with a huge smile on her face and says, "I think it is a sign.  Guess what was on my desk when I got to work this morning?  12 boxes of the MaterniT21 blood test!"  That is the same blood test she had told me about 2 days before that was not offered in Oklahoma.  She went on to tell me that she had not been contacted by a drug rep and didn't know anything about the test, so she called the company and got all the info and if I wanted to do it I would be the first patient in OK to have it done.  Of course my sister and I (she went with me because Scott couldn't go) both immediately said a loud Thank You to God and opted for the the blood test over the anmio right away!  The test took 10 business days to get back, but whatever results I got would be 99.1% accurate.

8 days later I got a call from Dr. B that the test showed "negative" for DS.  This sent my risk factor to 1/6400.

From start to finish it was several weeks and a whole range of different emotions.  Needless to say, we have no guarantees of having a perfectly healthy baby, as no one does.  What we do know now is that the babies kidneys are not enlarged due to DS, and now we continue to monitor the babies kidneys throughout the rest of the pregnancy, and we continue to pray for our son the way we have since the first day we found out we were pregnant and every day since.

Now I am almost 24 weeks pregnant and excited beyond belief to meet the newest addition to our family, just as we have been each and every day of this pregnancy, just as we will be until the day he makes his debut.  We all love him so much and are so thankful for this gift from God that is our fourth child.  Our third son.  Our baby brother.  Our Angel.