Today I had my 12 week scan and it was great news. Baby is alive and kicking! He or she is also just the right size for gestational age and my doctor says everything looks great. I can't begin to express how happy this makes me. I was so worried that we would be told something was wrong today. I made the mistake of reading up on missed miscarriages and had somehow convinced me that it would happen to me. It didn't help that two close friends both had miscarriages in the past month which helped fuel my paranoia.
I had a bit of a surprise today when he told me that he would be doing a Harmony test instead of an NT test. In my previous two pregnancies I had an NT test at 12 weeks to test for genetic abnormalities such as Downs Syndrome. Basically they take measurement of your babies neck and also look for a nasal bone. Then they do a blood test and combine the results to give you your chances. The results are in ratio form. So for example you have a 1 in 1000 chance and so on. They can be very confusing and often you need a CVS or Amnio to know for sure.
But this new Harmony test can tell you all of this in a basically non-invasive way. They take a blood sample from me and somehow they can access my babies DNA from it. So not only can they tell me for sure if there are any genetic abnormalities, but they can tell me the sex of the baby. Cool huh?
Medical science is truly amazing.
Dealing with the loss of a child is never easy, but it's even more difficult when you are an expat living far from home. Life will never be "normal" again and so now the challenge is to find my new normal. I am now back in the USA and the proud parent of two daughters, born using two different egg donors. "Frostina" and "Olea" are the loves of my life and I feel so grateful for the amazing women who donated their eggs and made my family possible.
Congrats on the good u/s today!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear about your friends. Some people think it doesn't hurt as much when you miscarry early ... they're wrong.
ReplyDeleteI *AM* mentally raising my glass of Diet Cherry Pepsi in celebration of your new little one :GRIN:
BIG HUGS.
Barb
Yea! So glad to hear things are progressing well. :-)
ReplyDeleteYay, it is so good to see a post from you and such a happy one at that. Yes, the advanced screening tests they can do now (Harmony, MaterniT21, etc) are great. Can't wait for your results.
ReplyDeleteYay for 12 weeks :) The harmony test sounds great and technology is amazing. Wishing you 28 more blissfully happy weeks.
ReplyDeleteI am really happy to hear that everything is going ok with your pregnancy!
ReplyDeleteThe harmony test sounds really invasive to me, but I guess needles don't phase you much at this point huh?
Thrilled for you!
ReplyDeleteThis is great to hear. So I guess you want to know the sex of the baby then :) Truly amazing what can be detected like that.
ReplyDeletePraise God!
ReplyDeleteMy friend just had that harmony test and found out relatively early the gender and that her baby was growing free of concern. Very cool new technology. Congrats. Happy to hear baby is thriving.
ReplyDeleteAmazing new technology...so glad things are going smoothly
ReplyDeleteWhat a relief! I know your heart is easier, and I can't wait to find out if it's another Frostina, or if this will be a Frosty!
ReplyDeleteSo glad everything looks good!
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