triple test to have or not

[petal75]

I had the blood test done but I wished I hadn't. The midwife sent me a letter saying that my downs result was 1:250. When I went to the hospital to see the specialist they couldnt understand why I was so upset as the lab report said 1:250,000. The midwife had written it down wrong . So, now I wished I had saved myself all the worry and not bothered having it done.

 

[lea m]

I opted not to have the test! I wouldnt have had the amnio so I didnt see much point in the blood tests tbh! I do understand though why others do and dont! Its all personal choice and there is no right or wrong answer!

 

[Mildly]

I had the test and would have gone on to have the amnio if my results had come back high risk. OH and I discussed it and both said that we would want to know before hand if there was anything wrong so that we would be able to make an informed decision on whether to proceed with the pregnancy.

I think depending on the condition there is a chance that we would have opted for a termination, obviously after a great deal of thought. Any condition that would mean our child would be completely dependant on care for the rest of its life would probably have been something that we would have had to think very carefully about. We discussed at the time, the situation in the future of us dying of old age and the worry that we would have over who would care for our child especially if there was no longer an NHS to speak of at the time. Sorry, that was very morbid but we wanted to explore our feelings on the subject in depth to make sure we were thinking along the same lines.

I think it is very much a personal decision for each couple though.

 

[Alicebabe]

I had it done along with a nuchal scan which is routinely offered at my hospital and to be honest, they were so laid back about it, I didnt even think twice about having it done - it just seemed so routine!

Anyway, got the results today and the risk of Downs is 1 in 20,000 and risk of other trisomy chromosome abnormalities is 1 in 99,999.

Cant tell you the relief when I read the letter!

 

[Noor~ul~Usman]

Personally I didn't take it because I wouldn't have an aborton anyway...just not an option for us...so I'd just be worrying for the next 6months about "what if..." and baby could come out fine Or I could make things bad if I got too stressed out over it

I deicided it's not worth knowing the "probability" of a problem...which is really all they can tell you.

Anomily scan showed all was well at 20weeks

[edit] Hubby talked me into having them done last time and they came back fine but I was always annoyed cause it felt like he pressured me into it "just because everyone else has".....but this time around he agreed he didn't want to know either and didn't mind me skipping them. I think after the MC he just wanted to have faith everything would be fine.
Ours is both a personal and a religious choice and I certainly don't look down on anyone who has come to the massive and painful decision to have a termination after finding out the baby is seriously/critically ill.

 

[maybebaby]

Please don't feel that I am judging anyone's decision, as unless someone has been through the same thing they can never understand how hard it must be.

I personally don't think that I would ever terminate a baby, doctors are proved wrong all the time and there's never any certainty about how long a child may live, or how 'poor' their quality of life may be. I personally would rather give the baby every chance, and even if it was to die minutes after being born at least I would never be asking myself 'what if'.

I really don't want to upset anyone, I just wanted to reply to the people who had asked questions based on my previous reply. And as I said before, unless I ever found myself facing that decision I will never really know what I would decide.

 

[xmcnickyx]

It was mentioned when I went for my 12 week scan but nobody ever told me how I would go about actually having the tests and I've forgotten about it till now.

I would quite like to have them (dunno if I still can) but husband said the results wouldn't make a difference to him. I think the results would make a difference to me and I think I would consider termination if there was a problem. I don't think I could look after a disabled child.

 

[katie05]

I can never understand why people make the direct link to abortions when pondering over this test. It seems to be a common assumption that if you have the tests it means you would 'consider an abortion', which isnt the case. Some people would just like to know what they are facing and how to deal with it before baby arrives. I have a friend who had no tests and had a bay with downs 7 years ago, which was undetected. She loves her lo so much but those first few months were hard for her as she wasnt prepared.

 

[kmac]

Just wanted to say i'm finding this thread really interesting.
I have to decide whether to have the test done or not, and this thread is really making me think about it from all angles.
Everyone's comments are valuable and justified
xx

 

[Noor~ul~Usman]

katie05 - true I guess a lot of us jump as far as the 'abortion or no abortion' bit....but my friend said the same thing to me "if you're high risk you have months to plan and get ready".....but why stress when the baby may still come out 100% fine or even with very minor disabilities which will barely effect them?

That's just my 2 cents I don't think it's worth the worry but I can perfectly understand other people wanting to prepair themselves in case.