Stressful Stuff

It was Boodge's naptime the day before his second birthday, and I was in the garage painting the second-hand table and chairs that I had bought him, when Sean came in with the phone. "It's the midwife." he said. I took the phone and cheerfully greeted Bethany, paintbrush still working in my other hand.

"I'm calling because we've got the results back from the blood test you did a couple of weeks ago, the quad screen for chromosomal abnormalities. Your results indicated that you have a higher than normal risk for having a baby with Down Syndrome."

The paintbrush stopped. "Oh?"

"Your chance was 1/180. Meaning 1 would, 179 wouldn't. But the cutoff is 1/350 so anything lower than that is considered a positive test. This test is just a screening test so I don't want you to be too alarmed yet, it's just an indication that we may want to do further testing."

"Right," I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. "I know that test has lots of false positives."

"LOTS of false positives," Bethany replied, "And even if it's not a false positive, chances are things are fine, it could be any number of things. I know it's scary," she said sympathetically. Which of course, released a floodgates of tears.

"No, no, I'm fine." I choked out. "I know this kind of worry is what you bargain for when you decide to make a baby."

Bethany told me that she would like to refer me to a Doctor in Surrey, about an hours drive from here, who specializes in prenatal screening and following these types of pregnancies. I agreed, and she called me right back to tell me the consultation had been set up for the following Tuesday morning (it was Thursday). She tried to reassure me more, told me to put it aside and enjoy my son's birthday, and hung up.

I immediately headed to Sean's office to tell him the news, taking deep breaths and telling myself to stay calm, keep perspective, and not panic him. As soon as I saw him I burst into tears, unable to get out any words as he asked me repeatedly, "What is it? What's wrong? What happened?" Finally, I explained it all to him.

He stayed calm, which calmed me too. "One, 1/180 is still a good chance of a healthy baby; two, there's nothing we can do about it if the baby has Down Syndrome, so we'll figure it out; and three, we don't know enough yet, so there's no point in worrying." I knew he was trying to be strong for me and I loved him for it. He hugged me and told me to lean on him, but as we were hugging he sighed and said "I forgot how stressful it is to have a baby."

We went through a lot of stress when Boo was born with wet lung and our idyllic home birth turned into an ambulance ride to the hospital with a baby on oxygen, who then spent the first 30 hours of life hooked up to tubes in an incubator. My whole pregnancy with him was wonderful. I felt great, passed every test with flying colours, and had a natural and uncomplicated labour and birth. It wasn't until the moment he hit the bed that he gave us a scare. Not so for Peanut, who, I joked to Sean, is probably feeling like we're not paying enough attention to him or her. Ok, Peanut, we're listening now.

By Tuesday I was feeling pretty stable. We'd had a great birthday weekend, enhanced by my re-appreciation of how lucky we are to have a healthy, bouncy kid like Boodge. I'd researched the test and found out that 1 in 4 results was a false positive, and about 95% of women who got a positive had a normal baby. We drove to meet Dr. Still eager to move on with information gathering.

His nurse sat down with us first, went over the test results in detail, and explained that we could have a detailed ultrasound, which would look for "soft markers" of Down Syndrome. If no markers were found, our risk factor of 1/180 would be doubled to 1/360. If we wanted to know for sure, we could have amniocentesis. But that brought a 1/200 (in BC) risk that the uterus would begin contracting, causing miscarriage. She explained that they liked to have all testing done by 22 weeks, because we could still end the pregnancy up to 24 weeks. "24 weeks is when the fetus becomes viable, so we like to take the ethical piece out of it by making sure we end the pregnancy before that 24 weeks."

I felt Peanut kicking in my tummy as she said all this, and the tears I had been keeping so well in check flowed again. To even talk about ending Peanut felt like a betrayal. Almost 20 weeks into my pregnancy, I am attached, for better or worse. I already love this stranger inside me, knowing the potential s/he has to bring me even more joy and love than I knew possible.

I know this topic brings up a host of sensitive and highly debatable issues. For the record, I am pro-choice. But as I've gotten older and more stable in my life and relationship, and especially as I've become a mother, I've felt more confident that my choice now would not be to end a pregnancy I hadn't planned or wanted. But I can understand how a woman different from me, in a different place in her life, may not want to go through with a pregnancy for valid reasons, especially if they discovered their child may have high needs and require a lot of financial and emotional resources, or may not have a good quality of life.

Still, I felt it was a bit ludicrous to suggest that they could ever take the "ethical piece" out of ending a pregnancy because you find out a baby has a chromosomal abnormality. We have friends whose child was born with Down Syndrome. He is a sweet, engaging, happy-go-lucky spirit and his family seems to feel blessed to have him. When he was born, his dad sent out an e-mail with a story to help us all get perspective. It was as if you had been planning a trip to Italy, the story told, looking so forward to all the things you would do, foods you would eat, spots to visit. But when the plane landed, you were in Amsterdam. It's not what you expected or wanted, but if you can get over Italy, you will find Amsterdam is a great place to be too. I felt pretty sure that Sean and I could get over Italy and enjoy Amsterdam. And I couldn't help but wonder how many beautiful children like our friend's child were not born because their parents found out ahead of time that they wouldn't be what they expected.

But even so, we were still hoping to go to Italy. So we asked for a detailed ultrasound. Sean has to travel for work this Sunday and will be gone for 2 weeks, and so the extremely kind Doctor agreed to come in at 7:15 on Friday to do an ultrasound himself, because no appointments were open this week. Driving home, I got a headache that lasted all week. Still, I did my best to put it out of my mind and avoid obsessive internet searches about what we were going through. I prayed, visualized everything working out, and focused on the moments with Boo.

Friday morning we were up at 5:30 and at the hospital by 7:05. The Doc greeted us and before I knew it I was lying on the table, looking at Peanut. Much shyer than Boodge was during his ultrasound, Peanut covered his or her face with little hands and buried it in my womb. S/he moved only a little, waving, kicking, turning a bit, and the ultrasound went quickly. If we'd had a technician, we would have had to wait for results. But the Doctor was able to tell us as he went through each part of the body that it looked normal. Finally, he examined the face.

"That's all normal." he said.
"The face?" I asked.
"The whole baby." he replied. "I don't see any markers that would be cause for concern."

Relief flooded me. We decided not to do an amnio, because the chances of that harming the baby were greater than the chance that it has any issues, and we don't need to know for sure. But we feel reassured. Now our numbers are 1/360. That's pretty good odds. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but when it comes to having kids, that's pretty much how it goes.

I forgot how stressful having a baby was. From the moment of conception, anything can happen to your most precious love. Many of the things that can happen involve decisions you have to make for your child; how to birth, what medications to take or give your child, whether or not to vaccinate, who to leave him or her with, what to feed him or her. Those decisions are nerve-wracking enough, but the fact is, most of what can happen isn't even within our control at all. If we let ourselves think about it too much, it can make us anxious wrecks. The best we can do is educate ourselves about the decisions we have, and be vigilant about potential dangers.

And after that, we have to surrender. Surrender to each precious moment with your child, and be grateful for every day that your family is alive and well. Surrender to the shape your life is taking, even it wasn't what you hoped or dreamed. Surrender to the love that compels you to do things you never imagined you would do, the turmoil of emotions stronger than any you thought you could feel. Surrender to the doubt and imperfection you feel as a parent, and try to trust that your best is enough for your child. It's not easy bringing these new spirits into and up in this strange world. But it's definitely worth it.