The Hazards of Advanced Maternal Age
So yesterday I go to the OB for my monthly visit--I'm 32 weeks along now--and he tells me that my baby is at a heightened risk for being stillborn due to the bad results of an AFP test and the good results of the follow-up Super Ultrasound. The AFP is a non-invasive (outside of one of my veins) blood test that can indicate a variety of things, including Down's Syndrome.
After the AFP, there was a 1-in-93 chance that my baby would have Down's. That's pretty high compared to all mothers and even those 35-and-up, whose babies face a 1-in-250 chance. So I went in months ago for this intensive ultrasound where they check very closely for signs of Down's, and those results were normal, and my Down's baby risk went back to 1-in-200. I could have had an amniocentesis and found out for sure, but there is a 1-in-300 chance of a miscarriage in that definitely-invasive procedure. If you don't kill your fetus with the procedure, you have to decide what you're gonna do if, in fact, the baby has Down's. Do you abort in the second trimester, after you've felt the baby kick and he's even getting close to viability just because he'll have Down's? You can't tell how severe the Down's will be. I'm pro-choice and all, but I was a bit squeamish about that. We chose to forgo the amnio.
What do we do with this new information? Starting next Tuesday I need to go to the OB clinic twice a week for external fetal monitoring. They'll wrap up my belly and I'll press a button everytime Marky kicks. What they want to see is his heart rate increasing during movement, which indicates that his brain is sending the proper signals to his heart, something like "you're kicking now, so the heart needs to go faster." They'll monitor him long enough to get a good reading--anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour--which might involve waking him up with an alarm clock-like buzzing sound if he's not moving enough. If he responds well, great! If not, then they'll do another Super Ultrasound and, if that goes badly, they'll get him out of there.
I tend to not freak out about stuff like this. My instinct tells me that things are good. However, the doctor--in a concerned way--DID say this: "It would be a shame to get you this far and then lose the baby." "Lose the baby." Three words that every mom just loves to hear! And I can't help but hear them.
What does all this have to do with my age? Did you know that 35-year-olds are automatically considered "high-risk" due only to their age? Risks for everything (outside of financial well-being) go up. Despite all of that, having babies at this age is becoming more and more normal.
The question facing Kevin and me now is 'do we have another?' After our one adoption experience, we appreciate the whole biological child thing a little more! And despite a lifetime of railing against those who have more than 2 biological children, thus going beyond the replacement level of fertility and adding to the world's overpopulation problem, I must say that I'm still considering a third! It blows me away to say that. Up to this point, Kev and I had planned to do the "I carried the babies--YOU do the non-invasive snip-snip" dance of sterilization. Now I'm not completely sure about that. If heredity is any indicator--and so far it has been--I've got 5 more years of fertility before hitting menopause, and then just another 15-20 years before breast cancer. The hardcore reality and permanence of sterilization is, well, something to think about.
I bet we go through with it, though. There are still a lot of kids out there to adopt, and we learned some valuable lessons in that arena. We'll see. Right now we've got to get Mark through another 7 1/2 weeks.
After the AFP, there was a 1-in-93 chance that my baby would have Down's. That's pretty high compared to all mothers and even those 35-and-up, whose babies face a 1-in-250 chance. So I went in months ago for this intensive ultrasound where they check very closely for signs of Down's, and those results were normal, and my Down's baby risk went back to 1-in-200. I could have had an amniocentesis and found out for sure, but there is a 1-in-300 chance of a miscarriage in that definitely-invasive procedure. If you don't kill your fetus with the procedure, you have to decide what you're gonna do if, in fact, the baby has Down's. Do you abort in the second trimester, after you've felt the baby kick and he's even getting close to viability just because he'll have Down's? You can't tell how severe the Down's will be. I'm pro-choice and all, but I was a bit squeamish about that. We chose to forgo the amnio.
What do we do with this new information? Starting next Tuesday I need to go to the OB clinic twice a week for external fetal monitoring. They'll wrap up my belly and I'll press a button everytime Marky kicks. What they want to see is his heart rate increasing during movement, which indicates that his brain is sending the proper signals to his heart, something like "you're kicking now, so the heart needs to go faster." They'll monitor him long enough to get a good reading--anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour--which might involve waking him up with an alarm clock-like buzzing sound if he's not moving enough. If he responds well, great! If not, then they'll do another Super Ultrasound and, if that goes badly, they'll get him out of there.
I tend to not freak out about stuff like this. My instinct tells me that things are good. However, the doctor--in a concerned way--DID say this: "It would be a shame to get you this far and then lose the baby." "Lose the baby." Three words that every mom just loves to hear! And I can't help but hear them.
What does all this have to do with my age? Did you know that 35-year-olds are automatically considered "high-risk" due only to their age? Risks for everything (outside of financial well-being) go up. Despite all of that, having babies at this age is becoming more and more normal.
The question facing Kevin and me now is 'do we have another?' After our one adoption experience, we appreciate the whole biological child thing a little more! And despite a lifetime of railing against those who have more than 2 biological children, thus going beyond the replacement level of fertility and adding to the world's overpopulation problem, I must say that I'm still considering a third! It blows me away to say that. Up to this point, Kev and I had planned to do the "I carried the babies--YOU do the non-invasive snip-snip" dance of sterilization. Now I'm not completely sure about that. If heredity is any indicator--and so far it has been--I've got 5 more years of fertility before hitting menopause, and then just another 15-20 years before breast cancer. The hardcore reality and permanence of sterilization is, well, something to think about.
I bet we go through with it, though. There are still a lot of kids out there to adopt, and we learned some valuable lessons in that arena. We'll see. Right now we've got to get Mark through another 7 1/2 weeks.
posted by lulu | 12:40 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Mark, hang in there, boy, we're all pulling for you. You can do it!
Post a Comment
<< Home