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High-Risk Pregnancy
Bonjay
member
debating what to do
Bonjay
member
Have been high risk since the beginning now after20 wk ultra sound have been told that my downs syndrome risk has gone up slightly. They found extra fluid in babies kidneys options are just wait till delivery or do amnio. Any advice?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: debating what to do
I can only say what I would do - I would do the amnio.
I think it is a hard decision. Talk to your DH. Think about it and decide.
When you've been married this long, you need a ticker to remind you.
Baby Boy M - 08/01/2013
Expecting Baby Bean February 2017
Only you and your family can make that decision, however, let me share my message and experience thus far with you - and allow you to decide:
Before you think about skipping to the end of my thought, I?d ask you what may appear at first to be a simple question: ?At what point has our society been afforded the opportunity to choose life over the simple perception of any imperfection??
Needless to say, the choice was simple for us. There was only one answer to a single-choice question, at least through the eyes of the Beahn family.
Baby Kennedi has been diagnosed with Trisomy 21, also known as ?Down Syndrome? to most. To add to the complexity, she has also been diagnosed with a leaky heart valve and a balanced atrioventricular canal heart defect.
She has already mastered the works of ?Peak-a-Boo?, ?Hide-and-Seek?, ?Peace-Out? and most certainly has the stubborn gene from both of her parents, to say the least -- just take a look at the ultrasound pictures. And to only imagine, she hasn?t even left her mother?s womb yet!
To date, our world has been trained to respond accordingly with apologies or kind words of sorrow. However, what most people miss is what a blessing she will be, not only to her family, but the rest of the world.
Against all odds, we will be welcoming Kennedi Beahn into this world sometime in the near future. She?s going to have one heck of a welcoming party when she is born at Shands@UF in Gainesville, Florida, courtesy of Dr. Anthony Gregg, M.D., Dr. Jennifer Co-Vu, M.D., Dr. Mark Bleiweis, M.D., Dr. Dorothy D. White, Dr. S. E. Brown, M.D., Connie Nixon, RN, among others and the rest of their teams.
Our decision never teetered and will never change; our path to success had already been set, no matter how many whispers may have tried to steer us onto a different path...
###
Obviously, the choice is your and will always remain yours, however, our experience thus far can only be summed up in Baby Kennedi's 4D video (link below).
(Check out the 4D video below!)
https://cdn.l2net.com/vid/kennedibeahn4d.mp4
https://cdn.l2net.com/vid/kennedi_smiling.jpg
Kraig Beahn & Family!
Dx: balanced translocation and LPD
TTC since Oct 2011
BPF 02/19/12, EDD 10/31/12, natural m/c 02/28/12 (4w6d)
IVF (BCPs starting 10/30/12, ER 11/18/12, 5dt of 1 beautiful, healthy embryo 11/23/12)
BFP 12/02/12, u/s @ 6w,5d showed 2 HBs! Identical twins!!
Bed rest from 21w-35w due to short cervix, hospital bed rest from 23w-32w due to PTL
Our rainbows were born 07/19/13 (36w, 5d)
Totally a decision for you and your partner to make together. Everyone will have differing opinions but here's what I did in our situation.
I've been high risk this pregnancy basically since the start...twins, GD, etc. I opted out of the screen then at 18wks our u/s showed Baby B had a calc deposit in his heart, which can indicate Downs. I was given the option of a follow up amnio but declined. My main reasoning was that I wouldn't abort my baby even with a positive result, so why take the test? I also didn't think I'd be any better prepared or less stressed if I knew ahead of time that our son would be born with Downs. Our MFM talked about the accuracy of the test/chance of false positives and commented that I didn't have any other risk factors for Downs. He also mentioned that an amnio carried a much higher risk of miscarriage for twins and I didn't want to put B's twin at unnecessary risk.
Pregnancy is stressful enough without high risk complications. If doing the amnio and being able to prepare yourself ahead of baby's arrival will take some stress off your mind, then you should probably go ahead with it. If you'd be less stressed and ok with not knowing, then decline the test.
It's most definitely a hard decision, but the question to ask yourself to answer your question is "Would you terminate the pregnancy due to results?"
I can say, as someone who had a high risk pregnancy with a lot of odds against me, that if my daughter had major problems that I would have terminated my pregnancy. I don't have the energy to be able to care for a child with severe medical problems. That was my decision. I, myself, have a lot of health issues and I can sometimes barely take care of myself.
I also thought about quality of life. What type of life quality would my child experience? To me that was also the biggest issue. A life of being on machines and with tubes in you is no life at all to me. I say that also as a nurse.
In my clinicals I cared for a child who was born with Trisomy 18 aka Edwards Syndrome. This child was more than 10 years old, which is rare because over 90% of babies born with Edward's die at birth. Only females live longer. It's tested for during pregnancy and this child's mom knew she had Trisomy 18 while pregnant. They couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't eat food or drink fluids, they had to have a feeding tube, constantly be on oxygen, and it was heartbreaking to see.
That's why I am not having any more kids. I lucked out with my daughter. I had birth defects so I expected her to have some, but she didn't have anything or any health issues. She still doesn't.
That's my 2 cents.
30 - Waiting to TTC#2
PCOS -Fibroids -Type 1 Diabetes