MFM Visit

Today I had the 12 week NT scan and visit with the MFM doctor.

The baby is doing fine and looking more and more like a baby. Heart rate at 168, CRL was about 84mm. The nuchal fold was fine and nasal bone is present. I could actually see well defined fingers as he/she waved his/her hand at me. I forgot to ask how many weeks/day it measured at but I am sure its on track.

Then the Doctor comes in.

 I must say I am so unimpressed with the OBs I am meeting. I am not sure if my standards are too high but really I feel I know more than them most of the them combined.

(Beginning of rant)

She comes in and I tell her about DE and age of the donor since they need it to calculate risk. So she says "how old is she now"?  I am like "um, she is xx years old"....then she says "what is her birth date?". I said its an anonymous donor I don't get that information.  She says well we need to know how old she will be when the baby is born to do our calculations, so I said well just add 1 year to her age.

I mean...duh!

So she looks at her sheet and says "I don't have stats for that age. It only starts at 29 years old, so the risk is very low".

Well, that is good except I know of a family friend who at 25 yrs old, with no risk factors, had a baby with Down Syndrome, so being young is no guarantee that all is fine which is why they now recommend NT scans for all ages.

Then she gave me four options of tests I could do for testing - First Tri only or a combined First and Second Tri. The main difference was that the one she was suggesting, with a combined 92% detection rate, you only get the results at about 20 weeks.

Heck, I am not waiting 2 months for results.

I ended up choosing well. A two part test, where Part 1 results come in a week and Part 2 is done at 16 weeks. I can handle that.  This combined test is 90% overall rate which okay by me.

I said I wanted to do MaterniTi21. She says it does not work with donor eggs. So I gently told her I had spoken with a clinic in the city and their genetic counselor confirmed that it does work with DE. So then she says that I may not qualify since they have certain requirements and I don't meet any of them - eg over 35, known chromosomal issues etc. 

WTF!!

I am beginning to think I should have kept my mouth shut about DE since its causing more headaches  since I don't qualify for half the things. 

She told me that by using DE they are going to treat my pregnancy as a twentysomthing year olds, which is fine and dandy, but then why am I being seen by a high-risk OB?

I then ask her about CVS and she launches into this lecture about risks, etc.  I am getting tired of hearing it.  I mean I thought it was my choice what I wanted to do/not do and its annoying me that they keep going on about risks.

Heck - pregnancy is itself a risk and so is childbirth and c-section is risky too. If the procedures like CVS and amnio were so risky why would they be doing them. And if its a 1% miscarriage rate, its also a 99% success rate. Amnio has a 0.33% risk, so a 99.867% rate of success with no issues.

I really don't know if its religious views being imposed on me or medical advice which is the part that is most disconcerting. Case in point there is only one place in the entire metropolitan area and 100 mile suburb radius that does these tests.  

Obviously I don't want to jump willy-nilly into doing an invasive test. I have more sense that taking a risk given all that I have gone through to get to this point.  But if it will give me peace if mind isn't it better to do it, than stewing and worrying for the next 6 mos which can certainly not be good for me nor the baby?

That is how I see it.

Anyway, I will patiently wait for the results and take it from there and not worry about things needlessly which don't need to be worried about just yet.  Anyone want to bet that they will mistakenly run the numbers on my age, not the donors???

(End of rant) 

Regardless, right now I am going shake off the entire frustrating encounter of today (blogging helps) and focus on the MAIN happy fact that the baby is doing well.

That is ultimately the most important thing and I don't want to lost sight of that miraculous fact.