hi. i have a question and it is keeping me awake and i am wanting some professional and/or honest opinions.
a little about what is going on: i have mentioned here before about my 1st child, a son, who died when he was 12 days old. he was born at 32 weeks due to my pih and the placenta starting to fail. blake was born with bilateral cleft lip and palate, hemivertebrae and tetralogy of fallot. we had no idea he was so sick until his birth as all the us in my pregnancy, we never saw any of these things due to his position in the womb.
i am now 10 weeks pregnant again. the dr i am seeing is not the dr i had in my pregnancy with blake, but is fully aware of all the complications we had in our first pregnancy and of blake's death.
in 6 weeks, we will be going to uab hospital for very high level us and a fetal echocardiogram and my ob/gyn has told me that we may be having an amnio depending on what they find on all the scans. i know the amnio has basically around a 1% miscarriage rate. it took almost 2 years to conceive again (and a lot of procedures) so i am very guarded about this baby. my husband and i have talked about the amnio since the day i learned i was pregnant again as my ob/gyn told me we probably would have one and we would not terminate no matter what-i've decided that if this baby is sick too, i will carry him/her for as long as i can. and if there is something wrong when he/she is born, we will deal with it-just as we would have done anything on this earth to take care of blake.
my question is this: honestly, how many times have you seen a patient lose their baby after an amnio-due to infection, pre-term labor, or late term miscarriage?
i know they can not force the amnio, but if there is any chance this baby wouldn't get to come home because of complications from an amnio......well....it would just be devestating.
i am sorry if this is difficult to read, it is 2 am where i live and i just had to get this out of my mind where maybe i can sleep.
Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.
I am so sorry to hear of your loss.
You mentioned that Blake's birth defects were not detected because of the position he was in during the U/S. It sounds like the docs want to make sure there are no surprises with the baby you're carrying now since you have very detailed testing planned--testing that would be able to detect cleft lip/palate, hemivertebrae, & ToF. You have the right to say "no" to invasive tests such as amniocentesis, which may not tell you anything more than what the scans will show.
Try not to stress out about this--it must be frightening for you to fear the same thing happening to this baby, but take things one day at a time.
Specializes in Med-surg; OB/Well baby; pulmonology; RTS.
I want to thank you all for your replies. I know if I feel uncomfortable with having the amnio, I don't have to do it...but I also will do anything to help this baby come home, so I guess we will have to wait and see what the other tests show. An amnio would be a last resort for us. And like I mentioned, no matter what the tests show, we wouldn't terminate.
I guess I should have mentioned that after Blake was born, they drew blood and sent it off to Mayo Clinic to determine if he had any of the Trisomy disorders-which Downs was ruled out immediately, but the neonatologists were thinking Trisomy 13 or 18: all of his chromosomal studies were normal. When I was pg with Blake, I was pg with twins-we lost his twin at 8 weeks due to vanishing twin syndrome. Most of the doctors we have talked with since Blake died feel like it was more development than anything.
I am just trying to take one thing at a time. I will let ya'll know what our tests results show.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
I truly recommend genetic counseling, if you have not done it already. It can at least tell you what your chances are of this happening to you again. My best wishes to you.....please let us know how you are doing!!! We DO care.
it would probably be good to have some tests to see if there are problems which can be dealt with during pregnancy to assure a healthy baby...my g-dtr had a gastroEcto baby and she required strict supervision during pregnancy...she had numerous problems like amino fluid leakage which was particularly bad for him w/bowels exposed as they were...close care with a high risk pregnancy resulted in a happy healthy baby at this time
God bless you and your little one...rub your tummy and let hime know he is loved
rnmi2004
534 Posts
I am so sorry to hear of your loss.
You mentioned that Blake's birth defects were not detected because of the position he was in during the U/S. It sounds like the docs want to make sure there are no surprises with the baby you're carrying now since you have very detailed testing planned--testing that would be able to detect cleft lip/palate, hemivertebrae, & ToF. You have the right to say "no" to invasive tests such as amniocentesis, which may not tell you anything more than what the scans will show.
Try not to stress out about this--it must be frightening for you to fear the same thing happening to this baby, but take things one day at a time.