After our scan was complete, we had to go and see a senior midwife regarding the ominously vauge 'tests'. We thought we'd actually discussed all of this with our own midwife, but went along anyway. She took K___'s notes and flicked through. 'Have you had asthma?', 'Are there any lasting effects from operation X or Y you had ten years ago?', 'What is the airspeed of a fully laden sparrow?' etc. The form notes that K___'s dad has type II diabeties (which is generally caused by lifestyle) and therefore they wanted to carry out some precautionary checks at some point. This would involve taking blood, which K___ admits she's not great with. Also involving taking blood are establishing what blood group you are, whether you've got Hep, HIV, anemia and the like, so K___ was going to have to profer her arm regardless.
I had a brainwave. A small one, admittedly, but a brainwave. 'How about I get the pictures from the scan and we coo over them, that way you won't notice?' Good idea; plan agreed. So, as the nurse rubbed an alcohol swab over K___'s inner elbow, I got the scans out and we looked at them and got into a debate about whether the bit I identified as the heart on the previous post was indeed the heart or not. Well, do you think this simple diversionary measure managed to distract from having a needle shoved in the crook of your elbow and your vital fluids extracted? Sure did; I never felt a thing.
To be fair, I don't think K___ was quite so impressed with its effectiveness and was trying to tell me the three small vials of blood they removed was 'practically an armful!' Not quite, Mrs Hancock! To be equally fair to her, she didn't make much of a fuss considering she's really not keen.
The midwife moved on to discuss the other blood tests that they would do and mentioned the one they do for Downs Syndrome. One positive fact that we heard was that, contrary to what we had seen elsewhere, Downs Syndrome does not have any genetic pre-disposition to occur in a family, so K___'s having a Downs Syndrome uncle will have no bearing on our situation. Overall, we've seen it quoted that the chances of a woman of K___'s age having a child with Downs Syndrome is 1 in 900. We have decided to pay for private screening using a higher powered scan. It is about 90% accurate compared to 75% for the blood test alone. As I've already mentioned in this blog, even if it comes back that you're high risk, it means that one child in 250 will turn out to have Downs. That's not bad odds. If they do find you're high risk, they can take some of the amniotic fluid (the stuff the baby swims in while it's in the womb) and do an even more accurate test - I think they said about 95% accurate. The problem with this is that it's an invasive procedure. There's a 1% chance that it may cause a miscarriage. K___ wouldn't want to do that because she'd never forgive herself if she miscarried a healthy baby.
There's quite a lot of odds in there but the thing I've noticed about odds is that people's perception is changed depending on what the odds are for. If you said there's a 1 in 250 chance you might get run over crossing a particular road, people would continue to cross that road and would say the chances of them getting killed were too small to worry about. If I said there was a 1 in 13,983,816 chance of pulling the correct six numbers in the national lottery, millions of people would still enter - and do - and would claim, 'Well, someone's got to win...' Our attitude to odds is very emotive. We get told that there's a one in 900 chance that we might have a child with Downs Syndrome and we laugh it off. If we're told it's one in 250, all of a sudden we're going to be getting nagging thoughts going, 'It'd be just your luck...' But put us on a road and tell us it's a 1 in 250 chance of dying and we'd laugh at you again...
I'm not trying to say there's any right or wrong in any of this. Clearly even with the more mundane examples of odds I've given you could easily argue that it's 'better' to spend one pound you can afford on the lottery than it is to take a chance crossing the road, despite what the odds may tell you because there's not much to regret about being one of the nearly 14 million people who don't win the lottery even if it's far more like to happen than being hit by a car crossing the road. Being emotive isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't always make us behave terribly rationally either. Well, come Monday, the 'lottery draw' scan will be made and we'll know whether we've got to start making hard decisions or not.
I know that until it comes through clear, I'm going to be a little apprehensive even if the odds tell me I shouldn't be.
I had a brainwave. A small one, admittedly, but a brainwave. 'How about I get the pictures from the scan and we coo over them, that way you won't notice?' Good idea; plan agreed. So, as the nurse rubbed an alcohol swab over K___'s inner elbow, I got the scans out and we looked at them and got into a debate about whether the bit I identified as the heart on the previous post was indeed the heart or not. Well, do you think this simple diversionary measure managed to distract from having a needle shoved in the crook of your elbow and your vital fluids extracted? Sure did; I never felt a thing.
To be fair, I don't think K___ was quite so impressed with its effectiveness and was trying to tell me the three small vials of blood they removed was 'practically an armful!' Not quite, Mrs Hancock! To be equally fair to her, she didn't make much of a fuss considering she's really not keen.
The midwife moved on to discuss the other blood tests that they would do and mentioned the one they do for Downs Syndrome. One positive fact that we heard was that, contrary to what we had seen elsewhere, Downs Syndrome does not have any genetic pre-disposition to occur in a family, so K___'s having a Downs Syndrome uncle will have no bearing on our situation. Overall, we've seen it quoted that the chances of a woman of K___'s age having a child with Downs Syndrome is 1 in 900. We have decided to pay for private screening using a higher powered scan. It is about 90% accurate compared to 75% for the blood test alone. As I've already mentioned in this blog, even if it comes back that you're high risk, it means that one child in 250 will turn out to have Downs. That's not bad odds. If they do find you're high risk, they can take some of the amniotic fluid (the stuff the baby swims in while it's in the womb) and do an even more accurate test - I think they said about 95% accurate. The problem with this is that it's an invasive procedure. There's a 1% chance that it may cause a miscarriage. K___ wouldn't want to do that because she'd never forgive herself if she miscarried a healthy baby.
There's quite a lot of odds in there but the thing I've noticed about odds is that people's perception is changed depending on what the odds are for. If you said there's a 1 in 250 chance you might get run over crossing a particular road, people would continue to cross that road and would say the chances of them getting killed were too small to worry about. If I said there was a 1 in 13,983,816 chance of pulling the correct six numbers in the national lottery, millions of people would still enter - and do - and would claim, 'Well, someone's got to win...' Our attitude to odds is very emotive. We get told that there's a one in 900 chance that we might have a child with Downs Syndrome and we laugh it off. If we're told it's one in 250, all of a sudden we're going to be getting nagging thoughts going, 'It'd be just your luck...' But put us on a road and tell us it's a 1 in 250 chance of dying and we'd laugh at you again...
I'm not trying to say there's any right or wrong in any of this. Clearly even with the more mundane examples of odds I've given you could easily argue that it's 'better' to spend one pound you can afford on the lottery than it is to take a chance crossing the road, despite what the odds may tell you because there's not much to regret about being one of the nearly 14 million people who don't win the lottery even if it's far more like to happen than being hit by a car crossing the road. Being emotive isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't always make us behave terribly rationally either. Well, come Monday, the 'lottery draw' scan will be made and we'll know whether we've got to start making hard decisions or not.
I know that until it comes through clear, I'm going to be a little apprehensive even if the odds tell me I shouldn't be.
It's a day late, but your account of your harrowing trip to your scan was hilarious. However, that's only because everything eventually worked out and you were able to be there for the scan and everything turned out well in the scan.
ReplyDeleteAs for the tests, well, yes, that's a whole new level of tension and questioning. For us, that was the first moment we realized what it felt like to have to make a decision that would ultimately lead us to no clear answer.
I'm sure that's just the first of many similar moments that 3B will provide us with. We're hoping that all turns out well.
I had amniocentesis with both pregnancies. They tell the woman to go home and do nothing for 24 hours afterward, just make yourself comfy on the sofa and let the hubby make dinner.
ReplyDeleteIt's not terribly invasive, unless of course you're terrified of needles. But considering how often you get stuck when you're preggers, it's not that big a deal. They use a high-powered ultrasound to locate the baby and stick the needle well away from it.
If you think that's scary, better hope your lovely wife doesn't have a c-section!
Seriously, good luck on the pregancy and congratulations.
Obviously a C-section isn't risk free, but if you're having one, it's (hopefully) because you need it (i.e. not because you're one of those ridiculous 'Too posh to push' stars who won't risk giving birth the normal way incase it ruins their figures).
ReplyDeleteWhilst we both know why women have amniocentesis, it's the thought of what would you do if you had it done, miscarried and found your baby was fine after all. You'd beat yourself up about it, I think.
Thank you, lucyglitter for that lovely thought! I suppose the answer is that if I had to, of course I would, but I sincerely hope it isn't necessary. Dignity is not the word that comes to mind!
ReplyDeleteActually I think if you told me I had a 1 in 250 chance of dying when I cross the road, I would seriously consider other options.
ReplyDeleteI know that I'm really late here but I have only just started reading your blog. I don't mean this to be offensive but why did you pay to have the downs syndrome test down privately if you wouldn't be following it up should the results show that you were high risk? If you would go ahead with the pregnancy no matter what, isn't it better to just wait and see?
I have to confess, much of the reasoning is now lost in the mists of time, but if you check day 44, you'll see we'd already arranged for the private scan prior to the one we were having at the hospital for free. We hadn't picked up on the fact that there was no hereditary factor in Down Syndrome which is what motivated us until we got to the hospital.
ReplyDeleteI've managed to conflate several factors to give the impression that we would have carried on regardless, but that wasn't the case. It's my fault for not being more clear.
What I meant to convey was that if a test that was 75% accurate of predicting a high risk chance (deemed to be more than 1 in 300) of a Down Syndrome baby came back as high risk, then K___ wouldn't have had the invasive proceedure at that stage, but would wait to see what the nuchal scan revealed.
However, if the private nuchal scan, with a 90% accuracy had come back high risk, then we would have had to ask ourseleves serious questions about what we'd do.
The last part is just me musing about odds in general and how we're not actually very rational in the way we interpret them.
Incidentally, you'll note that someone with a 1/300 chance of a Downs baby is high risk, yet someone with a 1/301 chance is low risk; both are near enough the same risk, but our reactions will probably be very different to each.
Oh, and no need to worry about being offensive! Hope you enjoy the blog.