I've been thinking a lot about this lately and know it's been
discussed several times but I have some specific questions. If you did
testing, did you choose the noninvasive blood draw/NT scan or invasive
CVS or amnio? What made you choose that specific route? What
were the results? If you would rather PM me, that's great... no
judgment here AT ALL
Re: Testing with second child after first born with special needs
So I have discussing this with my husband about this a lot lately. I think what we are going to do, is the blood draw/NT scan + a CVS. My husband and I really want to have the option to terminate (if the results indicated a serious issue) before I look very pregnant (I looked very pregnant by about 16 weeks with my first). My parents are conservative Catholics and we know that they would not be in favor of termination in any situation, so we would like to be able to avoid telling them I am even pregnant until we are past the CVS.
We did no genetic testing with our son, but will be doing genetic testing when we go to Children's to see the developmental pedi in a few weeks. The results of that genetic testing will help us to make other decisions (testing my husband and myself, and if a heritable genetic issue, then deciding to either not have more children or to do IVF to avoid passing that issue on).
Thomas ~ 07/07/2008 ~ 8 lbs, 5 oz
What's in my camera bag: Nikon D5000, Kit Lens 18-55mm, 55-200mm, 35mm 1.8G, 50mm 1.8G, 85mm 1.8G, Tamron 28-75mm, SB 600 Speedlight
Global Developmental Delay consisting of a receptive language delay and self help skills delay
BFP 3/9/12 Natural M/C 4/11/12
We did CVS with Nate and it did not pick up his micro-deletions. Surprise!
In hindsight, I am glad I didn't have to make a choice.
I will probably do CVS again though. I have no idea what the hell I will do if it picks up a trisomy. I don't know if I could mentally handle another SN child, yet the SN child I have is pretty wonderful up to this point.
We skipped the NT scan b/c this genetic condition does not have any soft markers. The only way to know is via CVS or amnio. We went with CVS for the sole reason that it can be done much sooner than an amnio.
My first born also has special needs my second doesn't but now that I am pregnant with my third we are going to have the noninvasive blood and NT scan between 12-14 weeks. I wouldn't terminate the pregnancy I just want to be somewhat prepared.
Having a special needs child has only changed our lives for the better and my husband and I see all children as blessings... Anyways, these tests have high rates of false positives and false negatives. You can end up terminating a perfectly healthy baby, just not worth it in my opinion. Just something to keep in mind.
With both kids I had the blood draw/NT scan as well as the anatomy ultrasound at 20ish weeks.
I was 37 with my first and 39 with my second. Both scans for both kids turned up nothing of interest.
My kids' special needs were/are speech delays. So far that doesn't show up on any prenatal scan.
^^^
I am pretty sure the PP is referencing the NT/blood draw (non invasive) tests that are administered prenatally. They do have statistically significant false positive/negative results.
I don't read condescending in the pp's comments. I get your anger and frustration, but you are taking it out on the wrong person.
We had an amnio when the anatomy scan showed that our first, Matthew, had a severe heart defect. Results came back that he had a micro-deletion, DH and I were then tested to be sure we weren't carriers which we were not.
FF to my second pregnancy and we opted for non-invasive testing early on but were clear that if we were even borderline we would then get CVS done and make a decision based on those results. Termination was always on our list of possibles. We had already watched one child die from his disorder and just didn't think we could go through it again. Thankfully everything was perfect from the beginning and even the MFM discouraged invasive testing because she looked so good. We finally relaxed after her fetal echo (which was the same week as her anatomy scan) and we knew that she was in fact as typical as she could be, which served us well when she arrived 7 weeks early.