amnio/cvs???

freckle wrote: Thanks again guys for all your kind words !! I just heard back and I can't get an amnio through public as I'm considered low risk, so we have to go privately which is gonna cost $800... I have booked in for Monday and now I'm utterly stressing about whether I'm doing the right thing... it just sucks that I could be risking miscarrying a perfectly healthy baby to give me peace of mind But then again stressing for the next 5 and half months can't be a good thing either....

No matter what decision you make you will always question yourself as to wether or not you have made the right choice. Wishing you all the best for Monday, and remember to rest, rest, rest!!

Hi Freckle, Tough choice, but you've got to do what feels best for you - as you said, stressing for the next 5 1/2 months would probably be worse for all. Good luck for your amnio.

Well they should recalculate!!! Can you demand the do it with the correct information?

Hi guys, I wanted to share my story as I went through CVS testing and found stories on forums really helpful and informative.

At 12 weeks DH and I went for our scan. We already have one beautiful healthy daughter so were expecting all to be well. About three quarters of the way through the scan I saw the nuchal measurement and knew something wasn't right. They measured it between 2.8mm and 3.5mm with 3mm being the measurement they thought was the most accurate. Around 2mm is normal. Combined with the blood tests and other factors such as age etc (I'm 30) I was given a 1:65 risk for downs which is extremely high. For my first baby I was given something like a 1:3000 risk.

My husband and I were devastated and immediately began to fear the worst. The hardest thing was the lack of information - I had the basics on the CVS test but my midwife didn't seem to know the answers to my questions. We spoke to her on Wednesday and had to wait until Monday to see the Maternal Fetal Medicine Team.

The staff at the hospital were amazing - really caring, sensitive and answered all our questions straight up. I'd always thought that I would keep a baby with downs syndrome, in fact I may have even been a little judgemental of people who chose to terminate. However it's so different when you are actually faced with that situation and we were considering ending the pregnancy if our results came back positive.

If you are around 14 weeks or less, you can have a surgical termination (a normal abortion) where you go into the day clinic. If you are over 15 weeks you can have a medical termination - where you go into the hospital and take some pills to bring on labour. The specialist told me it was like having a miscarriage - it is not like a delivery.

Waiting for our CVS appointment and the results was agony. The whole ordeal was easily one of the worst experiences of my life. We tried to cope by distracting ourselves. One of the worst moments was when I came home at night and found DH holding DD asleep in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

The CVS itself was not too bad. It only took a few minutes and was more uncomfortable than painful. The whole thing was incredibly emotional though and after it was done I found myself in the hospital chapel weeping and praying, despite not being overly religious.

Someone up there was looking out for us - our results came back clear. We are really relieved and happy, but still shattered from the whole gruelling experience. We organised our own counsellor because we wanted to be prepared for the results and also process all the emotions we were feeling. The hospital does not offer counselling unless a problem is found.

Hopefully now we can just relax and enjoy our pregnancy. My thoughts and prayers go out to anyone else who has gone/is going through this.