worrying times

I know I haven't blogged in ages but well life is busy. In the end I decided to carry on with the masters course and now I'm fully submerged in books and lectures that I have little time for anything else. Though I have discovered that by not eating fruit that my morning sickness has almost disappeared - very odd but there you go. I now live for decaff coffee and minty flavoured things - thank god for mint chewing gum, mint sweets and after 8 mints.

But I blog with a heavy heart today as our 20 week scan didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. After discovering a "golf ball" (calcium deposit) in the babys heart and renal pelvis dilation we were told of the increased chance of downs syndrome this baby would have. After having an excellent result from the test at 16 weeks that said our chances were 1 in 10,000. This news was a total shock and left me feeling devastated. Those of you who know me will know that 13 years ago I suffered a missed-miscarriage at 20 weeks when the little girl I was carrying died. All they could tell me at the time was that the placenta had stopped functioning and that my little girl looked like she had signs of downs but could not confirm it. She also had major problems with her heart.

So here I am again facing an uncertain future and its left me reeling. A further scan a week later revealed that the renal pelvis dilation was not as bad as first seen in the original scan. Though what was seen was still a shock to us. The right kidney displays some anomalies that indicate there could be two renal tubes but at this stage the baby is still too small to get a good look. They again looked at the baby's heart and still the golf ball was there. A very distressing day as it was a lot of info to take in - but from what the consultant said this hugely increases the chance of downs in this baby. Still thats a 1 in 3000 chance. But these are just statistics and don't mean anything now. What is left is the fact that these two anomalies are soft markers for downs syndrome and I'm struggling to come to terms with that.

I've decided to speak to the consultant about having an amio - and I know this carries a 1 in 100 chance of miscarriage but I have heard that decreases the later in the pregnancy you have the procedure performed. I'll be considering this carefully as I'd rather know now than spend the next 18 weeks constantly worried. At least I can prepare myself in some form - I don't know.

Anyway that's it for just now