I'm not supposed to admit this, I'm sure, but ever since our scan last week I've been in limbo. You see, the results of our ultrasound were less promising than we'd hoped for. Essentially, we were told a normal measurement for our baby's nuchal area (back of the neck) was up to 3.0, and our baby measured at 2.8. That measurement put him/her in the 'borderline high' range, which of course set off alarms in our heads. Basically, we had to wait for the bloodwork to come back in order to get a full picture of our baby's risk of having Downs or Trisomy. Both were scary, but Trisomy in particular can end in fetal death or death very shortly after birth. This was NOT an ourcome I was prepared for, and quite honestly it wasn't something I expected to HAVE to worry about. We're young enough we shouldn't have a high risk, and no one in either family has had Downs or Trisomy. And yet....there it was in black and white on a fax to my MW "Borderline High".
And so....I spent the past week feeling dazed and detached. I am sure this is where I am supposed to wax poetic about children being a gift from God and us not being given a challenge we can't handle, but the truth was I was petrified. Could we handle a kid with Downs? Trisomy? Did we want to continue a pregnancy if we knew there was a good chance our child had one of these chromosomal defects? Did we want to live with ourselves for having to make that kind of decision?
Luckily, we didn't have to decide. We got the word today that the bloodwork came back, and the results were so good they negated the questionable results from the ultrasound. The chance this baby has Downs is about 3 times less than average for women my age. And the chance of Trisomy is less than 1 in 10,000.
I feel like a weight has been lifted. Like I can let myself dream and imagine without worry or fear. That I can fall in love with this baby's movements in my belly, and imagine what its face will look like. That I'm not setting myself up for disappointment. I feel free. I can breathe.
1 comment:
Oh my! You just brought back memories for me of two weeks of hell that I spent worrying when I was pregnant w/Ryan and the u/s tech found 2 small cysts on his brain. Like an idiot, I went to google and found a hundred horrifying articles about what this could mean and how it could affect my little boy. Those two weeks were the worst of my life. :(
Anyhow, this isn't about ME. ;) I'm so happy that everything came out ok and that you have a healthy little bambino growing. YAY!!!
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