Sucky day yesterday, and need somewhere to vent.

My wife is pregnant with our second child, and we went for the first scan (turns out she's 11 weeks 4 days). Everything looked fine, then we were told the nuchal translucency (NT) measured at 6.4mm (they look for less than 3.5mm) which is indicative of a higher risk of Downs, Edwards and some other syndromes...especially given my wife is 39 and at a higher risk simply due to age.

This news was obviously not what we were hoping for, and we were taken into a quiet room and someone came along and told us our options.

We're going for a CVS test in London Tuesday (essentially, they take a sample from the placenta and count chromosomes to test for syndromes). It's invasive and has 1/100 chance of miscarriage, but we'd rather know so we can make informed decisions.

If the tests from that come back all clear, then we still have to have more scans as the larger NT reading is also indicative of a higher risk of heart defects and that will need to be monitored through the pregnancy.

There we were hoping to come away with a nice pic of the foetus (we did but...I can't look at it at the moment) and good news for everyone, and then this.

I know it boils down to "there's an anomaly we need to check out that might turn out to be nothing", but you just can't help thinking about the "something".

Trying to keep busy...

So sorry to hear that :(

Good luck with the CVS!

{{{JOE & family}}}

Sounds like an awful situation, hope everything goes to plan.

Not that I have kids so can't really comment about being in a similar situation but I think the way I see it is that at least you are having the tests done now and you'll be in a position to make an informed decision early on with all the information, rather than things being a huge shock further down the line.

We should get results quite quickly truth be told, but then there's no such thing as quick in these situations. We should know one way or the other (re: the syndromes) before the bank holiday weekend.

Much thumb twiddling.

Really sorry to hear, hope it turns out to be nothing :(
It especially hits home because we also haven't had any kids yet and we're both over 30..

Having a baby is stressful enough, without worrying about specifics like this.

I don't know what to say without sounding patronising or insincere.

With our two, my neuroses went into overdrive worrying whether or not they'd be healthy babies. And I'm a worrier anyway. When Clare was pregnant with the second one there was a spate of adverts for a deaf/blind child charity and I couldn't shake the empathy I'd have for a child in that situation, and the worry it'd happen to ours.The only thing that happened during the pregnancies was that William was breach for a bit and Stephen was fine all the way through up until the birth when they found he had the cord wrapped around his neck... they had to wheel in a resus trolley and we went from everything's fine to absolute panic in seconds. So even if you're told everything's ok, strange stuff can happen. That's probably not very reassuring - sorry.... :-S

You can't control/change anything any more than you can change the weather. I've learned that worrying about stuff is a pretty crap way to be all the time and have stopped myself doing it. You've just got to hope it works out ok.

Hope it all works out ok!  :-)

We had our first at the ripe old ages of 35 and that was a breeze (well...apart from Emma spending the first 12 weeks with her head in the toilet bowl in between pickled gherkin cravings).

We kept busy yesterday after leaving the hospital (after the obligatory 'tell our parents' visits). Ate lunch out at our favourite middle-of-nowhere pub, went to a nursery and bought a load of garden stuff, ate cake and got back in time to pick up our girl from nursery...obviously she kept us busy until bed-time.

Then we watched Interstellar and went to bed.

So yeah, kept busy. Lots to do over the weekend so there won't be too much time to 'think' about things that don't need to be thought about until the results come through which is just how I want it at the moment.

Don't really know what to say, so I'll just say this: (hug)

I remember the nerves we had over a far less dramatic scan. Best wishes mate, I hope it all works out for you.

Sorry to hear that mate. Getting news like that is horrible, we also had an anomaly in the scan with our new one that is still waiting to be checked out. The waiting is the worst.
I have no offers of advice other than carry on life as normal.

Massive Hug to you both.

The other side of things is, doctors are sometimes wrong. There is a baby named Hope at CHOP and she was expected to live for three hours at most after birth. She is now nearly a month old and may soon be breathing on her own.

Yeah, these have been a long few days.

Still, the scan is tomorrow, and whilst we won't get answers immediately, it won't be too long.

Hope everything checks out OK with yours. I think even if all the tests and scans are clear, I don't think I'll be able to breath until birth day. Mind you, I remember being like that with our first and that pregnancy was plain sailing so that just might be a 'Dad' thing.

Good Luck with the scans, We finally got the answer we needed and I am happy to say the new baby is fine and home with the family.

Have another hug, being a dad is hard when you know you have no control over anything!

Hope all turns out ok. It's bad enough right at the start when the baby to be is only 6mm long and there are worries.

And good news Wattsy :)

Great to hear your news was good.

Our results come back and not so good. Decisions have been made.

Wish I hadn't seen the scans.

Whatever the decision you have to be safe in the knowledge that it was informed with the right info and hopefully right support from medical people, the best decision for everyone involved.

I'm really sorry to hear that JOE :(

Rubbish mate. I am sorry you have to make those sort of decisions, that must be awful. Me and my wife have had a few conversations about what we would do if that situation arose and we were both on the same wave length. I hope you two can talk it through and make a decision soon, don't leave it hanging, it won't help you are the baby.

 

Sorry. Is it entirely hopeless then?
  That's a tough one for sure.

Sorry to hear that :(