My Intertwined children. Part 5

By MissyBoo On September 30, 2008 · Leave a Comment · In Kai, my intertwined children, precious moments, Uncategorized

Four Years Ago Today
I had my CVS. The maternal-fetal medicine specialist, JD was the only person in the world I trusted to do the procedure. She is a wonderful woman.

I know I cried from the moment I got on the table. JD and the midwife (both of whom I had worked closely with) tried hard to be encouraging. One in 104 is not such a bad odd, they’d had someone last week with a 1 in 2 chance of abnormalities and that baby was normal.

They didn’t have my gut instinct!

After watching Kai doing somersaults for a few minutes, JD commented on what a healthy looking baby he was. And then the needle went in and collected the placental cells…

Two days later, I received the fast tracked results which were only 99% accurate. These have a high risk of false positive readings. I was offered this being that I was an ex-staff member and I had such a strong gut feeling.

Kai had Trisomy 13.

I was devastated. I cried and cried and cried and cried for days on end, for hours on end. I spent lots of time by myself at the beach, I know it rained a lot and I generally sat in the car watching the waves…

I had been a midwife for nearly 10 years. I knew about Trisomy 12, 18 and 21 but I had never heard of Trisomy 13.

I met with the genetic specialist and the genetic counsellor the next day to discuss options. We decided to wait another 10 days for the final results (not that there was anything likely to change).

Three Years Ago Today
As much as I couldn’t wait to meet Boo, I was starting to get anxious at the prospect of her being born on Kai’s birth date. She was due 5 days later, so it was a very real probability.

0 Responses to My Intertwined children. Part 5

Fe says:

September 30, 2008 at 22:38

Thank you SO much for sharing this stuff with us. I’m totally riveted. And totally speechless.

(((((((((( Lani )))))))))))

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Melody says:

September 30, 2008 at 23:02

I ditto what Fe has said. I will share my experience in times to come (down, down, dooowwwwnnnn the track!) I too had a CVS and miscarried the following day.

Until word really gets out about all the Trisomy results and what they mean, no one really knows (nor cares) if they have normal pregnancies and produce healthy children. The road both you and I have been down is different but alike and word needs to get out to appreciate what you have and how lucky a lot of women are.

Lucky for me in the fact that I already had a lovely beautiful healthy child. I imagine if this past pregnancy was my first then I would be too scared to ‘try’ again (in all honesty). -Of course all my memories are still fresh in my mind, it was only about 5 weeks ago – You are a brave strong woman to go down the roads you’ve been on. This I admire.

I look forward to reading more of these themed posts…

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Guera says:

October 1, 2008 at 01:13

I keep meaning to comment on these posts. Thanks for trusting us with such a personal journey. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to get those results. I had high probability results (1 in 200) from the triple test with Guerita and had an amnio so I know a little bit about what that feeling of dread and fear feels like. Luckily all was fine with her but I had several weeks of contemplating “what if” and it is an awful thing to go through. ((hugs to you))

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Alison says:

October 3, 2008 at 08:19

Having just been through something scary with 2 very close friends, I now understand a tiny, tiny bit of what it must have been like.
Oh. My. God.
Your courage and your strength is truly inspirational Lani.

And I can’t wait to meet Boo!

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M+B says:

October 5, 2008 at 13:06

Fe – Thanks for being interested

Melody – You are a brave, strong woman reading these with all your emotions still being so raw.

I didn’t realise you miscarried after your CVS as you hadn’t elaborated in your post. Big huge hugs to you.

Guera – Thanks for commenting, these ones are especially hard to comment on. Its always nice to hear when someone gets some positive healthy results back.

Al – Thank you. Hugs to you and your friends.

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Trish says:

October 25, 2008 at 04:54

Oh. My. Gosh.
I can only echo Al “Your courage and your strength is truly inspirational Lani”.
(hugs)

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