Not So Good Baby News

Two weeks ago we went to have a level 2 sonogram done.  When I was pregnant with Kassidy the test for Down Syndrome came back positive.  I became a "high risk" patient and had many sonograms done throughout my pregnancy, which was such a fun little blessing.  All of the sonograms revealed no other markers for Downs and I was pretty reassured that everything was fine.  My mom and aunt have both also had tests come back positive and their children are great also.  Weird. 

So this time around I assumed that my test would come back positive and I just wanted to do the more in depth test where they do blood work between 11-14 weeks with a sono and do additional bloodwork around 16 (I think) and compare all of those results. 

We started with the sono.  We were with the ultrasound tech for about 15 minutes trying to get the baby to flip over and show its back so they could measure properly.  The baby wouldn't do it.  It would flip over completely, kick and punch, but never roll over.  The tech had us take a 5 minute break to shake the baby around and get it to roll over.  (PS. I know what the baby's gender is, so it's really hard to keep calling the baby it... I will post about that soon)  The shaking didn't work and the tech came back in for another 10 minutes.  No luck.  No big deal.  We just didn't get any really good measurements.

Then the dr came in.  She said she was going to do the ultrasound again.  I assumed because she wanted to try and get the baby to roll over.  I asked a question and she said that she would go over questions at the end.  That was kind of when I realized she wasn't just trying to move the baby.  Something was going on.

Finally, the dr pointed out the fluid sac on the back of the baby's neck.  She said it was much more than it should have been.  She went on to list a million different chromosomal disorders, trisomy 18, trisomy 13, Downs syndrome, and the percentages that our baby had of having those disorders.

I could barely understand her with her accent and I was in utter shock, but I said, "Ok, so we have about a 90% chance that there is something wrong?"  She replied that it was more like 80-85%.  She encouraged us to have further testing done a CVS or amnio before 20 weeks because there was no terminating it then. 

Terminating the pregnancy was not and is not an option for us, so we opted out of that testing.  I left crying and Mike left extremely upset.  He did not appreciate the way the dr broke the news and treated us.  He was really upset because he felt like she was strongly pressuring us to terminate the pregnancy.

The news was devastating and troubling.  I did lots of research, but I had to just keep reminding myself that God has a purpose for everything and that He gives us nothing we can't handle.  Downs is definitely the least troubling of the issues.  Trisomy 18 is very, very bad. 

God always has a purpose and the only thing we can do is trust. We love our baby tons already and can't wait to meet her!!