More Thoughts.

Thanks guys. Your thoughts and support mean more to me than you can ever know. I love you both!

Yesterday was such a long day. We got up at 6 am and had to leave at 6:30 for our 9 a.m. appointment. I was so exhausted, and actually felt drugged, so I slept the whole way down. The night before Matt and I had a talk, and I wanted to talk about what we would do if they said the baby did have a problem. He said he was 99% sure everything was fine, so he wasn’t going to worry about it. I knew everything wasn’t fine. (which is why I think I dealt yesterday better than Matt.) We got to the doctor and met with the genetic counselor. She was very nice, but I think it was weird for her to meet with such a young couple…she kept commenting on how most of the couples she meets with are older, or have family histories that would suggest they should worry, which we don’t have. They thought we were having a CVS that day, why, I am not sure, because I told my doctor that I DID not want that. So, we started on the first trimester screen, which would measure the nuchal thickness…and they would take my blood, etc. The tech got the baby up, and it looked like it was waving at us….this was the first time Matt got to see our little peanut, so he thought it was very cool. He was very upset with the tech though (she kept shaking the baby to get it to move off it’s neck). The baby was moving around, and she got tons of shots of it for us. And then she finally got the neck shot. As soon as it came on screen I KNEW that the nuchal thickness hadn’t been wrong…or gone away. Matt said later that he knew it too. There it was….. I marked in red what they measure



but honestly, all I could think while the baby was moving around on screen is how much I love that little thing. I knew I would love my baby, but I had no clue I would love it so much so early. The doctor came in and introduced himself. He must have been watching from another room because he said that the measurement was the 5mm and normal was 2.5, giving us those scary 1 in 3 odds. He said we didn’t even have to go on with the screening, because it was going to come back positive for a high risk. He said we could do a CVS that day or an amnio in five weeks. And then asked well, what do you want to do. It was such a hard decision to make. They said that their odds for miscarriage (his own odds) for the CVS and the Amnio were the same, and that most people chose the CVS to have the info sooner. They left the room to have us decide…and it was just so hard. Finally I decided I just wasn’t ready for something invasive THAT day, so –to the doctor’s surprise, I think—we told them we would have the amnio later on. We scheduled that for July 20th

I think we left the hospital a little numb. And when we got in the car was when Matt started to waver. Thankfully I didn’t cry… honestly I had done so much crying since last Thursday. He just looked so upset. And he said lots of stuff…. I don’t remember it all. I know he said that was SO SURE that we were going to go and they were going to say nothing was wrong. And maybe we shouldn’t even have the amnio, and lots of other stuff. We went to Applebeas to eat and he said maybe he should quit ball. He said he felt like he already let me down by playing so much ball and not being around as much as he should. I told quitting ball probably wouldn’t help anything, except to give him more time to brood over things. And then he started to cry in the restaurant. It was pretty awful. We went home and took a three hour nap. I think he is feeling better now. Just really scared.

Of course, I am scared and upset too, but not as much as I was before. I am not sure why. The odds are scary. But I am clinging to the 2 in 3 odds of nothing being wrong. Or that even if something is we can get through it. Sometimes I feel like I am in a dream…or numb or something. I only almost cried when I told my mom, because she just looked so upset. And of course, I think Why Us every once in awhile too.

And I am scared of the amnio. But I said if the odds were this high I would have it done. We need to be prepared. And we will need to have the baby in another hospital if there is something wrong. Although I have heard three stories already of ladies who were told by their amnio (supposed to be 99% correct) that their babies had Down Syndrome and they didn’t. And someone has already told me a story of their friend who had a miscarriage after her amnio. And I just wonder if I am doing the right thing. Argh. No expectant parents should have to think of these things.