Playing the Numbers Game...

I promised a more detailed update on our baby girl, so here goes it...
Thursday proved to be a very emotionally exhausting day for Steve and me. On the one hand, we found out we are having a girl~very exciting! On the other, we were hoping to have certain questions answered and not only did we not have those questions answered, we left with more questions than we walked in with. We met with the genetic counselor first who went back over our numbers with us from the earlier tests and said that the upcoming ultrasounds (28 and 34 weeks) would be focused on the placenta as well as the baby given that they are fairly sure that the high hormone levels are indicating the strong likelihood of me developing preeclampsia again. After meeting with her, we were a little frustrated as we discovered that my doctor's office scheduled me too early for a full morphology ultrasound, so they were likely not going to be able to see many organs clear enough to say yes, we see this issue, or no, everything looks great. Even so, Steve and I went in feeling a little better thinking that we were likely looking at a reoccurence of preeclampsia. Still scary- but we have already been through it and know what to anticipate. Not to mention, the problem is with me and it resolves itself after delivery, and is NOT a problem with the baby.
Then we have the ultrasound. The baby (in utero name- Hope- I felt it was fitting) has echogenic bowels. This means that on the ultrasound they are as white as the adjacent bone. What does this mean? Well that's what they are trying to figure out right now. It is a marker for chromosomal abnormalities (most commonly Downs Syndrome) but they also see it in some infections and viruses, babies who swallowed any blood in the amniotic fluid-if the mother has some sort of bleed at some point, and Cystic Fibrosis. SO- those are the blood tests I had to do, for CF and potential infections/viruses. If I come back positive for CF, then Steve will have to get tested too (recessive gene- both of us have to carry it). I also have to go back Dec. 11th for another ultrasound for more measurements. The doctor had a pediatric cardiologist come in to look at the heart and after looking at it for nearly 10 minutes in complete, nerve-wracking SILENCE, she said everything looks OK that she can see now. But again we got the- it's still kind of early. So it's sounding like the Dec. 11th U/S will give us some more answers, and I will just pray that my blood tests come back negative. And we'll make a decision about the amnio after the next ultrasound.
So what is the numbers game that I am referring to? Well, my 1 in 58 chance of having a baby with Downs Syndrome just became a 1 in 8 chance, thanks to the ultrasound finding a marker for it. But really, when it boils down to it, this all means NOTHING. It's a risk assessment. Of course, when its YOU going through it, its all terrifying and traumatic and near impossible to think about anything but the "what if's." You know logically, the numbers are just that, numbers, but inside all you can think about is your baby. What if Hope has Down's Syndrome? How will that change our lives? How will we ensure that we bring her up with the most normal life possible? What if she has Cystic Fibrosis? How will she feel when she becomes aware that her parents brought her into this world knowing full well that she will not live beyond her 20's? What if it's one of the infections? One of the infections that can cause developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, blindness, or deafness? What if, what if?...Knowing what I now know, I would never choose to get these screens again. We are talking about unknowns right? Well the world, life, and the lives of your children are FILLED with unknowns. What if the doctor offered to tell you your risk assessment for having a heart attack before the age of 50? How about the chances that your child would have some form of childhood cancer? A risk assessment for becoming a victim of a violent act? Or how about knowing how likely you are to get hit by a car and suffer a traumatic brain injury? Would you choose to know? Of course not! We wouldn't even THINK about developing tests like this. Yet this is OK for my unborn child? Does it help for me to make myself more stressed out about this pregnancy than I already am? I firmly believe that our moods and emotions greatly affect our babies in utero. I don't want to be crying and worried the rest of my pregnancy. I want to be enjoying life, I want to be happy, I want to be THRILLED to be planning the arrival of my second child. And I feel like "the numbers" are trying to rob me of these moments.
And I feel terribly guilty. I feel like I prayed so loudly for a girl that God didn't hear me praying for her health....
But I ended my week on a positive note. After crying through the better part of my drive home from work (not recommended commuting 45 minutes on a dark, rainy, foggy night where the visibility is bad enough to begin with) I came home to an e-mail from a gracious woman from my Mom's Group who offered to watch Brian for me tonight so I could go out to a Mom's Night Game Night and get my mind off everything. I took her up on it and am so happy that I did. It was exactly what I needed. I had a great time, I laughed, I chatted, I played games (miserably though, I must add- my game playing skills are not quite up to par) and I didn't think once about the "numbers."
So this is where we are now. We try not to worry, and we hope and pray for the best. And we stay away from math...