Hi honey,

Let me share my story. Hopefully it will give you some hope in this dark time.

I have been in your shoes. My DD, at 11wks, had a nuchal fold measurement of 7mm. 7mm.

When that combined with my bloods, we had a 1 in 20 chance of DS.

We opted to have CVS straight away. The sonographer was great. I cried the whole way thru the procedure. My DH was shell-shocked, all he could do was hold my hand. Fortunately my mum was there too and held my other hand, stroked my hair and told me she loved me.

Then we saw the Obs. She prepared us for the worst - even if we were cleared for downs and other chromosomal abnormalities, there was no way the baby would be ok. We had a 1 in 10 chance that we would end up with a normal, healthy baby. She painted a very bleak picture - in her experience, she had never seen a nuchal measurement that high mean nothing. If it wasn't chromosomal, it meant major organ issues which would present their own complications.

So we cried some more. We waited. We cried. The first 48hrs while we waited for the fast test results were the worst. When I got the phone call telling me we were cleared of downs and the two other main chromosomal defects, we cried some more.

And then we had to endure 2 weeks of waiting for the full results. Somehow we got thru... And we were cleared again.

Then we had to wait another two weeks. We had a scan booked for 16 weeks at which point the sonographer said he'd be able to check the major organs for growth, development and function. We waited.

We had the scan. My DH held one hand, my mum held the other. We all held our breath. The dr checked the organs, one at a time. He told us what was happening. With each organ that was checked and cleared, my eyes filled with more tears.

When he finally told us that he could not find any developmental or growth or functional issues with any of the organs, that he was confident everything was ok with the baby, I finally let myself breathe and had a big cry.

The sonographer and Obs were astonished. Neither of them had seen a nuchal measurement that high that lead to nothing. They diagnosed a cystic hygroma, which basically meant her head grew faster than the neck and surrounding tissues and took a while to catch up.

We had another scan at 20wks to be sure - and then 20wks later I gave birth to a happy, healthy baby girl. She is now 2.5yrs old and the light of our lives.

My advice to you is to stay away from Dr Google. Google is not your friend at this time.

Find people to talk to who understand. DH and I really struggled with people trying to help - to understand - but they do not.

People will judge you if you think about terminating... But no one should understand that, it is a horrible horrible place to be.

Some of us, on here, sadly understand. Talk to us. We are here. I am here, I will listen. I have walked in your shoes.