Week 14

Between my doctor’s office and the genetic counselor I was able to get an ultrasound at the high risk department and a consultation follow up with the maternal and fetal medicine doctor who we love. Obviously we knew at 14 weeks there wouldn’t be a whole lot for the ultrasound tech to see that might indicate a soft marker of any issues but we needed some reassurance. 

After the ultrasound, which did not show anything of concern, we met with the doctor and talked about options moving forward for testing. We also chatted about our emotional health and how we were more or less “robbed” of that first pregnancy that was all rainbows and butterflies.  Although she has never experienced any type of situation like this herself she’s obviously been around a lot of women who have being a high risk doctor. It was very nice to be able to talk to a doctor about real life thoughts and feelings versus just medical procedures.
 We decided that an appointment with an ultrasound and amnio at just a few days after turning 15 weeks would be the best choice moving forward. The amino would be the only thing that would give me a piece of mind about the health of the baby.

Week 12

I got to meet the newest Doctor of the practice. I'm glad I took my laptop with me for this one as I sat in the patient room for quite some time waiting. I went into this appointment not knowing whether I'd need to explain my pregnancy history or if the doctor would do her own research before walking in. 

Well I think the reason I waited so long was because she was reading my chart. She seems to have known everything about my history and wishes moving forward with ultrasounds and whatnot. I was very impressed. We also chatted about what to do from here on out. She told me I wouldn't need anything until the glucose test. I of course asked about her opinion on working out. Come to find out her husband does CrossFit (and has since 2009!) and she worked out the day before she delivered her kids. This was exactly what I needed to hear. I had hope for the rest of the pregnancy and I was happy to add her to my list of good doctors after this appointment.

Week 10

Week 10

We had our first appointment with my ob/gyn’s office at 10 weeks. We had an ultrasound performed as well as the blood draw for the genetic test. I went into this appointment hoping for the best but expecting the worst in regard to reviewing my medical history and the fact that I was newly pregnant and most women are over the moon at this point in time.  However, the appointment was with my favorite ob/gyn that I had seen last time around. She was actually the one who was able to refer me to check out the clinic that I ended up going to.  She was very understanding of the situation that we were in and didn’t the “relax, it’ll be okay” aura. She also helped us set up an ultrasound with consultation with the maternal and fetal medicine doctor we had seen last time. We planned to see her and get an early level 2 ultrasound at 14 weeks.

After the doctor was done it was time for the blood draw. Of course it took for-ev-er to get completed. For some reason my blood wasn’t coming out very fast the nurse ended up having to stick me twice to get enough blood. My poor husband was told to leave the room to make sure he didn’t watch the procedure. Once he came back in he was curious what had happened and what took so long.

The results came back a few days later and as requested the nurse who drew the blood called me. As soon as I saw the number come through on caller ID I knew who it was calling. I happened to be at work and just leaving the bathroom so I took the call. The nurse said she had the results and that they came back negative for all three trisomy’s. At this point my heart was pounding but I was very relieved. She then asked if I wanted to know the gender. I of course replied, yes. My husband and I had decided we wanted to know the gender no matter what although we weren’t sure if we were going to tell anyone else.

That was the best news I had ever heard but of course my mind started wondering about the reliability of the test. I immediately texted my husband letting him know I got the test results and to call as soon as he could. After we chatted I shot off an email to the genetic counselor that we had worked with last time regarding the reliability of the Progenity Verifi genetic test.

Luckily, she replied rather quickly with some statistics that helped me breathe a bit:

“Based on your ~1% risk for recurrence of any trisomy given your pregnancy history, as well as the sensitivity (detection rate) and specificity (false positive rate) of Verifi, the negative predictive value (the chance that a screen negative is a true negative) of a "screen negative" Verifi result is as follows:

Down syndrome / Trisomy 21: 99.99%

Trisomy 18: 99.97%

Trisomy 13: 99.87%”