A Little Foppish Idiot?

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Not necessarily, go on a modified Atkins diet. Cutting down the use of sugar and white flour never hurt anyone, especially if you eat a lot of turnips!

 

I'm doing A level biology and yup the wife will need lots of protein, even more so for a month or so after the baby is born for breast milk. Aswell as extra vitamin D, I imagine your told all this sort of thing by your doctor?

 

Yeah, Aldeth, now is not the time to worry about weight so much as nutrition: whole grain carbs, high-quality protein, lots of vitamin-rich foods - and even with that your OB may want her to take vitamins intended for pregnant women.

Good wishes for the scan! It will be very exciting, I think.

 

True enough, but artificial sweeteners have to be avoided during pregnancy. So if she wants a cup of caffeine-free tea, he only choices for sweetening it are sugar or honey.

Yep. And we've done a lot of research on the subject as well. There's tons of pregnancy books laying around the house. My wife isn't worried too much about her weight at this point. We're a little over two months into the pregnancy, and she's only 3 pounds heavier now than when she got pregnant. Most of the books we read said a normal, healthy amount of weight to gain during pregnancy is 25-35 pounds.

Doing that as well. My wife was taking over the counter vitamins, but her OB perscribed a brand name type of prenatal vitamins as well.

In other news, my wife went to have an ultrasound done yesterday, so we now have our very first picture of Mini-Fop! I thought the doctor said to do it next week, but it turned out she said later in the week. Mini-Fop is only about 1 inch long at this point, but there are still some very obvious features. The head is clearly visible already (the head is about half the total length right now), and while it will be some time before arms and legs are fully formed, there are definitely these nubby things sticking out of the torso that I can only assume will one day turn into arms and legs.

 

I'm always amazed that the ultrasound person can find it all. They whizz the scanner around all over the place and all you can see is blurry stuff. Then they stop suddenly and declare 'there it is'. The next scan is even more exciting because you can see hands and fingernails and teeth. If the ultrasound person pokes the baby in the right way, you can get him or her to wave his or her hand at you. Cool.

 

Super, Aldeth, now you've had your first glimpse! You'll love the next one. BTW, I may have mentioned earlier that even very good ultrasounds sometimes judge wrong on the gender - so take that as probable, not certain, if that's something your doc tells you.
EDI: and how do I know? From going to a baby shower for a girl that turned out to be a very healthy, perfectly normal baby boy. Moral: buy yellow or green, not pink or blue, gifts.

[ January 20, 2007, 03:21: Message edited by: revmaf ]

 

I'm a little late but I wanted to congratulate you nonetheless. Be happy Aldeth! You're going to be a father!

 

So, Aldeth, how are things going? Any new ultrasounds?

 

Actually, just yesterday my wife went to the hospital for another scan. The purpose of this one was to measure fetal neck and back length. Evidently by taking a ratio between neck/back/body length, you can get a good indicator of whether or not your child has trisomy 13, 18, or 22. Trisomy 22 is Down's Syndrome. The other trisomies that are tested for result in far greater birth defects than Down's Syndrome. Since the test is non-intrusive my wife and I decided to have it done.

Unfortunately, the little guy (or gal) wouldn't sit still. The measurements have to be precise, so they need the fetus to remain stationary to do the test. After about an hour, the technician gave up and had to reschedule my wife to come back in a week. If it doesn't work a week from now, we won't be able to get the test done. The ratios that you need to calculate are only available in weeks 11-13, and if you don't have it done by the 13th week, the ratio is no longer a good indicator of trisomy.

When my wife told me this yesterday (I was not present at the appointment - I was at work), I was less than pleased. The only thought going through my mind is, "It's still only a fetus, and already the kid is hyperactive." On the bright side, my wife said that even though it's only two weeks later, there are already great changes. Hands and legs that were just nubs before are now clearly visible.

 

Aldeth, sorry for the frustrating experience - but fetal movement is good, I think, even if inconvenient.

Worth getting the measurements done, it sounds like, if the little foppish idiot cooperates.

 

This is a very tricky area. I know people who have been through the tough end of that whole trisomy thing, in other words, what do you do if the tests come back with a higher than normal chance of abnormality? It's all very very tough. But probably a discussion for the Alleys rather than here, because it gets into sensitive territory.

 

@HB - you're absolutely right. Although the first part of the process was a no-brainer for me. Initially, all you get done is an ultrasound, so it is completely non-intrusive. The way it works is if the measurements are OK, then you have nothing to worry about concerning trisomy - your child does not have it. If the measurements are not OK, then your child MIGHT have trisomy. The test is set up in such a way that there is higher chance of a false positive than there is with a false negative. To put it another way, all fetuses with trisomy have the abnormal measurements, but not all the fetuses with abnormal measurements have trisomy.

It is at this point in the process where you have to consider what to do. The second part of the test to cofirm whether or not your child has trisomy would be to perfrom an amniocentesis. Normally, this isn't a problem either, but 1 in 200 amniocentesis causes the mother to have a miscarriage. Still, to me, it's STILL a no-brainer. That is because of the various trisomies, only trisomy 22 (Down's Syndrome) results in a baby that is likely to survive more than few hours outside the womb. The other trisomies result in severe birth defects, and medical technology is not yet at the point where the baby will have any chance of survival. I cannot think of too many things more horrible that preparing for 9 months to have a baby, only to have the baby die shortly after birth. If there's no chance for the baby, then I would say abortion is a sensible option.

To me, the only decision as to what to do is if your child does in fact have Down's Syndrome. It will live - Down's Syndrome is the one non-fatal trisomy - but your child will not lead a normal life. Yet at the same time, I do not think I could consider aborting what would otherwise be a healthy fetus.

 

Aldeth, you have given such a thoughtful expression of the grave decisions parents now face, even months before birth!

You are absolutely correct about the various trisomies. I sit on a public board in Tennessee that reviews the deaths of all children under age 18 (in order to make sure preventable deaths don't fall through the cracks, and especially that child abuse deaths don't go uninvestigated - thankfully no longer a big problem). Many of the shortly-after-birth deaths are due to one of the non-Downs trisomies. In most of those cases the mother was unaware that the fetus had the abnormality. How horrible for those families!

So I agree with you - not that you need my agreement! - that pursuing the tests is wise, and if you have an indication of possible abnormality, amniocentesis is worth serious consideration.

We support you and hope for, indeed expect, the best - just sorry you have to wait to find out the results.

 

All I will add is that sometimes this stuff is not such an easy no-brainer. Each person has a different view and different way of reacting to the various outcomes that might arise. It can be a staggeringly emotional and sensitive business.

 

We were fortunate that T3 did not have any problems. Still, the 200:1 shot of a miscarriage entirely ruled out that test for us. That is a one in two hundred shot (one-half percent) a procedure WILL kill the child. No amount of poor diet or even alcohol use (and perhaps even drug use) has that high of a fetus death rate. Driving without proper infant safety equipment does not cause that high a death rate.

Mrs Bruno and I discussed this at length. We decided there was NO chance we were willing to risk an invasive test which might harm the fetus. As I said, we were fortunate and never needed to reconsider that decision.

 

I know of someone who DID have that test. And the results came back positive for a little living boy with trisomy 22. How do you deal with news like that? It was very very tough for them.

 

Aldeth, don't let us scare you any worse than you already are . . . and know only you and Mrs. Aldeth can make these testing decisions for yourelf. We continue to wish you very well, and expect the best for all three of you - two and a half of you - two and an almost you - ah, you know which ones I mean.

 

Well, this is really just the start of a long list of things that you'll have to get used to being worried about when it comes to kids, e.g.

- is the kid healthy on the scan?
- how is the birth going to go?
- is he/she going to sleep through the night?
- what's that thing he just ate?
- is he learning to read properly?
- why is my teenage daughter going out that loser?

It all starts here and will never end!

 

Thank all of you for your kind words.

Regarding the amniocentesis, the only way I would consider such a procedure is if there was a high statistical chance based on the previous non-invasive test that the child would be born with some type of trisomy. Clearly, a 1 in 200 chance is higher than one would like, and obviously, anything that would raise the chance of having a miscarriage should be avoided regardless of how remote the odds of such an occurrance are - even if it were 1 in 20,000 - if you could avoid it, you should do so.

The thing is though, the odds of having trisomy if the results of the initial test indicate an irregularity are much higher than 1 in 200. For that reason alone, I'd probably recommend the second test. That having been said, I have thought of something that is worse than carrying a baby to term only to have it die within hours after birth. It would be to get the amniocentesis performed, have the test come back normal, and then have a miscarriage. That would actually be worst-case scenario, but not much worse than having a child die within hours of its birth.

IMHO, once you agree to get the first test done, you are practically committing to getting the second test done if the first test comes back abnormal. If you aren't willing to get the amniocentesis to confirm the initial abnormal result, then you probably are just causing more stress for yourself knowing that the possibility is there, but not knowing for sure. I have been doing some more reading on this since I last posted on this topic, and it turns out that the majority of the initial tests that come back with abnormal results are confirmed to be normal fetuses once the amniocentesis is performed. It's something like 20% of fetuses with the abnormal initial results actually have trisomy. So my feeling is if you would never consider an amniocentesis, then you probably shouldn't bother to have the first test either.

Finally, I do not know how I would deal with knowing my child had trisomy 22. That having been said, not finding out ahead of time is not going to make it any easier to deal with. The second test isn't going to CAUSE the trisomy, so if your child has it, (s)he has it. I feel sorry for that couple, but I don't think that finding out prior to the birth was any worse than finding out after the birth.