WWYD? 12 week apt tomorrow :)

Lucky_N_Love · May 2009

I am so excited/nervous to get to see and hear my little jelly bean tomorrow. I have an ultrasound and an appointment with my doctor tomorrow for my 12 week check up.

My question is about the blood test that they will do for downs, etc. Did you do it why or why not?!

I originally thought sure why not I'd want to know so I could prepare for whatever heads our way, but then I wonder if it is silly to get myself all worked up when I've heard of the tests coming back with a false positive.

I don't know if I want anymore maybes (I came back as a positive for cystic fibrosis carrier and freaked out but DH isn't so all is good...worry over)

WWYD?!

Traycee1242 · May 2009

We decided to not have the testing done.

After a lot of research and discussing, DH and I just felt it wasn't worth it. I have had 2 friends in the last year who had false positives. And the only way to know for sure is to have an Amnio... which neither wanted with the chance it brought for miscarriage. They BOTH worried their entire pregnancies and had healthy babies.... good outcomes, but not worth the stress IMO.

I figured that anything wrong would show up at our 20wk anatomy scan and I would know then. We are so fortuanate that our little bean is completely healthy.

It is a personal decision. GL to you!

vbmeg · May 2009

It is really a personal decision. With my first pregnancy I did do the cystic fibrosis test and luckily I am not a carrier so we didn't have to worry about it again. We did not do any of the other optional tests mainly because if something did come back positive, it would not change anything for us. I am also not considered "high risk" for anything. All it would do is make me worry more during the pregnancy. And I think there are plenty of other things that we worry about so why add to it?

kel716 · May 2009

vbmeg:
It is really a personal decision. With my first pregnancy I did do the cystic fibrosis test and luckily I am not a carrier so we didn't have to worry about it again. We did not do any of the other optional tests mainly because if something did come back positive, it would not change anything for us. I am also not considered "high risk" for anything. All it would do is make me worry more during the pregnancy. And I think there are plenty of other things that we worry about so why add to it?

ditto vbmeg. We did none of the testing because it wouldn't change anything for us. We thought long and hard about it. The only argument we heard that might have convinced us otherwise is "if" we knew something was wrong we could have people lined up ready to go at delivery. (eg, would we need to be at Good Sam instead of B North?... be ready to go to Childrens? etc...)

teacherjess · May 2009

We did do it. And I think it may be because we teach at a Catholic school, but people are always shocked that we did. The assumption seems to be that if we had seen something wrong, we would have aborted, and that's the point of the test, which is not true. We would NEVER have aborted, no matter what it would have showed.

We wanted to know so that we could be prepared in the event that our baby did have problems. If our baby did have trisomy 18, we wanted to be prepared for what would happen after birth, mentally. If the baby had or might have had Down's, we wanted to be prepared to parent a baby with Down's and have support systems/groups in place. If the baby had CF, same thing. We just wanted to be as ready as we could to welcome the baby, regardless of anything that was wrong with her. For us, it was all preparation.

It worked out well for us because at that appt., we had blood drawn for CF testing, and I was positive. Luckily, DH wasn't, but they recommended that my sister be tested eventually to see if she was also a carrier. So this was helpful for us.

It's a personal decision. People always say to us, "Oh, I didn't have it done because I wouldn't have aborted regardless." We wouldn't have aborted regardless, either, but we wanted to be prepared for all possible outcomes. We would have loved the baby regardless.

GL deciding!

hav2run · May 2009

We did do the testing after thinking it over for weeks. I mainly did it because of my age being over 35. We also wanted to know everything we possibly could before DD was born. We figured if we were willing to find out the sex, have multiple ultrasounds, glucose testing etc, then why hesitate to learn if there are genetic issues we need to be prepared to handle as well? It would not have changed anything for us, but we would have been prepared for any scenario. I will say that having those blood tests really reduced my anxiety level.

cops_wife · May 2009

We did not. I figured I'd likely find out if something was wrong at the 20-week u/s, which was fine because we would not have terminated the pregnancy anyway. I also read up on the rates of false positives on each test (the doctor gave us all that information at my first appointment) and I felt like I didn't need any additional needless worry. In part, I think that was because I had a lot of early spotting and several early ultrasounds -- several b/c the first was so early that there wasn't a heartbeat yet -- and that meant weeks of worry about whether I was miscarrying. I didn't want to go through that again, especially if everything was going to turn out to be fine.

adamsbabble · May 2009

I felt that the u/s provided the information I was looking for, so I opted out of any additional testing. Like PPs, I didn't want to worry needlessly over a false positive and it wouldn't have made a difference for us either way.

adamsbabble · May 2009

I wanted to add that I don't assume that people who have the testing done are considering terminating their pregnancies if something is wrong. When I say that it wouldn't matter for us either way, I just mean that if I had it and then had a positive result, I would not be willing to have further testing such as an amnio to find out for sure, and as PP said, that is the only way to know for sure. If you have the quad screen done and get a positive result, would you then be willing to have an amnio (which is a more invasive test that risks miscarrying)? If not, then I personally don't see the point in even messing with the quad screen.

lisamm1 · May 2009

teacherjess:

It's a personal decision. People always say to us, "Oh, I didn't have it done because I wouldn't have aborted regardless." We wouldn't have aborted regardless, either, but we wanted to be prepared for all possible outcomes. We would have loved the baby regardless.

This is exactly why we tested.

Lucky_N_Love · May 2009

thank you all so much for your honest answers and advice.

jerseygirl81 · May 2009

We had all of them, for the reasons TeacherJess stated. It also helped with my anxiety issues.

cat81305 · May 2009

It is definitely a personal decision. We opted out of all the testing for both pregnancies because it would not change anything with the pregnancy for us. We figured there was no reason to worry the entire pregnancy if there is something wrong. The u/s at 20 weeks will also show many abnormalities if there are any. Also remember, most insurances will not pay for the additional testing so you want to call and ask before making your decision. Good luck in what you decide :-)

mrs.george2be04 · May 2009

We did not. I didn't feel like it was necessary and like some the pp said if we would have seen anything amiss at the 20 week ultrasound there still would have been time for some testing to give us a heads up on any potential problems.

sistrkate · May 2009

I have been over 35 for both of my pregnancies. DH and I elected to do no testing at all with the first pregnancy, thinking that because we had no known genetic risk factors, we were comfortable with no testing. I had an early u/s at 11 wks and the regularly scheduled one at 20 weeks and neither revealed anything to be concerned about. Despite that, I worried for my entire pregnancy and never felt like I could really "invest" in it and relax. I kept worrying that the baby would come and have something terribly wrong, and we wouldn't have been prepared for it. Thank goodness, DS is perfectly healthy and everything worked out great.

I had a bad experience last summer with a molar pregnancy. Because of that and the fact that I am still over 35 (not getting any younger!), we opted to do the early screen this time around. I talked to my doctor about the various tests available to me and he advised us on which ones he felt would give us the answers we needed. We were very fortunate and got good results for such an old lady, and I feel much more comfortable with this pregnancy now than I did the last time. That's not to say that something could not still happen, but it does alleviate some of the worry.

As far as the pp's stating that the 20-week u/s reveals risks, it does to a certain degree from an anatomical standpoint, but it does NOT reveal genetic abnormalities. That's not what it is for. My personal advice is if you are under 35 (which I assume you are) and you're not at increased risk for genetic problems, you don't need to do the testing if it would only make you worry more. In my case, the opposite was true. You don't have to make a decision on amnio until much later, should the results call something into question.

I know that was long, I hope it helped.

tinytot_924 · May 2009

We started out with the CF test to rule out that I was a carrier. I am not, so that's a plus. We opted out of all other genetic testing. Then, we had our 20w U/S (we had ours at 18w). It revealed some soft markers for possible genetic issues (2 vessel cord, echogenic bowel, and something else that I can never remember). At that point, we met with a genetic counselor who discussed our options with us. We also were sent over to see my OB right away so we could discuss the testing. After talking to the genetics counselor and my OB, we decided to go ahead and do additional testing at that point.

My doctor made it very clear to me from the beginning what her opinion on amnio's were. She didn't like to do them any earlier than 36 weeks, 32 at the earliest, especially because we weren't planning on terminating the pregnancy. At one of my later appointments with her, she shared that around the same time we had been informed about our soft markers, 3 other patients had been informed of the same thing. All 3 opted to do the amnio. One lady did it and had perfect results. One lady did it and found out there was a genetic issue (I forget what it was), however, the pregancy continued. The last lady did the amnio, however, went in to labor that night and delivered her perfectly healthy baby girl at 22wks.

My point -- if you don't do the testing now and something reveals itself on the 20w scan, you can have further testing done. And, for what it's worth, my results on my screen were worse than a friend who was over 35. My results said I had a higher chance of having a child with down's than hers were. However, my result was still within the normal range. It's a personal decision. If we were to get PG again, I think we would probably opt to do the testing. I would want to know.

andailey · May 2009

DH and I opted for the blood work for testing, and it was the worst decision we ever made. We got the news at 16 wks. that the blood work was 'positive' for trisomy-18: the rarest defect in the test. DH and I were absolute messes for the next 12 wks. or so, as I had to have 2 level 2 ultrasounds done... while they didn't show anything significant to corroborate trisomy-18, legally, the doctors can't 'rule it out' once the positive result was given.

Thankfully, DD was born healthy and happy (just prematurely) at 36 wks. I won't ever do the testing again, because in the grand scheme of things, any issue would never change our minds about wanting our child. HTH. It's a tough decision. GL.

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