On this rainy Sunday evening, when my boxes are nearly all packed for moving to a new place, I thought I'd reflect on the not-so-great parts of pregnancy. Not every moment is thrills and giggles, as I discovered. So here it goes...
I, like many first time pregnant women out there, do exactly as my doctors tell me without questioning the rationale. And I learned my lesson the very hard way. When I was 12 weeks along, my doctor told me to go to a prenatal screening center to measure and take blood for a syndrome screening. Little did I know that my husband and I would be on a roller coaster of agony for the next 6 weeks.
During the screening, the doctor told us that the measurements of the fetus were excellent and the blood draw would give us more information. My husband and I left there celebrating our good news and ready to tell everyone about our pregnancy!
Flash forward a week and a half. My test came back with a higher risk for Down Syndrome due to my blood hormone being high. We went in for genetic counseling another week later, and it turns out that about 5% of women in the state (California) receive positive screening results and have completely unaffected babies, it’s just high hormones that fit a possible profile and the screening is usually meaningless. It boiled down to a 2% risk, and many people just wait until the birth to find out. But for those that need to know if the baby is affected, the only conclusive option is to have amniocentesis. Well, I’m generally a planner, a control freak, a type A, and having a 2% risk looming over me was just the same as a 50/50 chance. I was afraid. Because I was afraid, my husband was then afraid too. The ethical/moral dilemmas can be left for another person to delve into, because for me, I just NEEDED to know, so we decided to have the amnio as soon as possible. Unfortunately, because I was around 14 weeks when we made the decision, we still needed to wait another couple of weeks. That way there is less risk of miscarriage. So at 17 weeks, I finally had the amnio and it was not the most fun experience. In fact, it seems I had a worse experience than most other women, because I had a long contraction during the process and the baby also moved close to the needle. Both events resulted in the doctor waiting several minutes with an enormous needed puncturing through my body. All in all, there was minimal physical pain; it was the emotional part that was tough.
As it turned out, the baby is fine and healthy so far, and I am so thankful for that. We went through the emotional toll and expense for nothing, except our sanity.
When I talked to other women about these screenings, it turned out that they or their friends had had similar experiences and decided to go a different route for future pregnancies. I researched and saw there is a later screening I could have taken in my second trimester instead, or I could have opted to have a 20 week anatomy scan without a blood serum test. I felt I had been forced through this process because these screening centers are looking for those few couples that DO come in and have a fetus with a defect or disorder. Hence, I became another statistic pushed through the screening mill like mommy cattle.
I wasted over a month of my pregnancy living in a state of fear and anxiety, and my baby likely suffered because of it. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll handle the screenings if/when I have another pregnancy in the future, but I do know that I won’t blindly follow whatever my doctor or the screening center says. I will question doctors’ orders and understand the purpose of every test and screening I undergo.
Because of the stress my husband and I went through, we decided to try and enjoy every part of the rest of this pregnancy. Every day I am thankful the baby is developing typically, and really hope I never have to come face to face with a 10 inch needle again.
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