hello, after a few weeks of reading posts, I've decided to add my own as an attempt to help others who may be in the same or similar situation.
After many months of trying, I was delighted to discover I was preggers for the 2nd time. Never felt better than the first 11 weeks, despite sickness and exhaustion. On New Years eve, I notice a brown spotting/ bleed when I went to the loo. It carried on over the course of the next day. I saw my midwife a couple of days later for first appointment and she kindly booked me for an emergency scan. I then found out that my pregnancy probably started as a twin pregnancy but one "vanished" leaving an empty sac. I was happy to still be pregnant and had mixed feelings about possibly loosing a twin.
My 12 week scan went fine (nucal fold 2.3, I'm 37) but my bloods came back as 1/25 risk of downs. I booked a CVS, but due to another small bleed a couple of days before, the consultant decided it was better to wait and have amnio. Also, she was unaware of my vanishing twin, and said that the blood results should be discounted because of this, reducing my risk to 1:73.
At 16 weeks (Monday) I had the amnio, but unfortunately, the sample was contaminated with my old blood, making it brown. I am now in the position of waiting to know if they can tell anything from it, whether by FISH (unlikely) or the longer 2 week process (possible).
I called the Fetal Medicine Centre but can't have the Harmony blood test because of the suspected twin pregnancy at the outset.
I'm swaying between tearful disappointment and anxiety to feeling positive and hopeful. My big fear is having to go through another amnio at 18/19 weeks which may also be unsuccessful (my blood will still be in the fluid) and having the anxiety though the rest of the pregnancy, or alternatively, if the test does work, a late termination of a longed for baby. After much soul searching and research, my husband and I feel that we would not continue with the pregnancy if it was downs.
My question at this stage is whether anyone else had old maternal blood in their amnio sample and whether that affected their result? Also, is it worth me booking a scan with Prof. Nicolaides at the Fetal Medical Centre - could he tell me anymore from performing a detailed scan?
Thanks for reading and I send out my heartfelt best wishes and luck to everyone else who's currently involved in this horrible statistics waiting game.
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Antenatal tests
vanishing twin, high risk downs, bleeding and now old maternal blood in amnio sample
5 replies
ellaujo · 06/02/2013 15:24
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