Hi Mummies to be

So fabulous to see everyone still here and growing fabulous FT bubbas!!

Crumpet ~ Hope everything goes really well for you today, and I am thinking of looooooong cervix vibes for you, I can't wait to here the goss and I am betting over 3.4cm

MamaSpice ~ Good Luck for your monitoring tomorrow, hopefully this time he is a little more co-operative during the monitoring and wakes up for a bit of a party! Flicker was having a grand old time last Friday when I had mine, kept kicking things, and we would get decelerations, HR would drop then a big wack! And the other way where the HR would go really high, we think he/she was getting really excited and then it was followed by a flurry of kicks. Wasn't too happy with the ctx though. I can't believe you are going to be holding your baby next week oh sooo sooo exciting!!!!

BlackRose ~ Goodluck with your appointment this afternoon, it sounds like bubs is really low, very exciting, I hope the ctx ramp up for you and labour starts to get going, you must be getting frustrated with having the ctx for so long

AFM ~ My OB also wasn't particularly happy with the fact that my contractions are still around even with the change in the Nifedipine and the rest, and she said she wants to try me on Progesterone to see if that calms everything down. I am feeling a lot better today and have only had a couple of ctx, so now that the events of the last few days are behind us hopefully everything can settle back down

I am also super excited that 30 weeks is sooooo close now just 2 days away, and that was one of my BIG milestones to reach this pregnancy, following that 32 weeks and DD's gestation which is 33 weeks 4 days from there we would be in unchartered territory

Well I am glad the last couple of days are over and done with! I apologise for the really long post and if you have read the other thread, but it covers everything. The whole experience was horrible, and one I wouldn't wish on anyone else, and it is horrible to know that there are 20 families involved in it all

This is what happened at the appointment:

We arrived early and they were running late, the couple before us came out and the father started explaining everything to his parents or IL's so we had an idea before we went in what was going to happen.

Dissappointed that the OB I had was the one from the WCH, so came with the pretty blunt intro as to what happened. She went through what has happened, there was a change over of software right at the time we had our 12 week scan, so the results went into one program, but should have gone into another, there were glitches in the software. So what it has done is changed our risk for DS from 1:655 to 1:244 and placed us in the high risk category, hence the reason for us getting called in. She then went on to say that we are still able to terminate not here but we would have to travel interstate, it was just so blunt I lost it at this point. In addition I have come back with Low PAPPA.

Our options are to have an amnio which comes with a risk of MC of 1:205, but due to the shape of my uterus and the fact that I am already having contractions, the risks are significantly higher. We have been placed in a position that no parent wants to be in let alone at 29 weeks into the pregnancy.

She went on to do a full scan, growth scan, and almost a full Morphology scan, she took great care looking and measuring the nasal bone, the heart, kidneys, brain, she also did a set of dopplers. She was happy with the growth scan, everything is tracking online, but TBH I don't know if there are any real signs of whether a growth scan is going to give any indication as to whether a baby has DS or not.

I can't believe we have been placed in this position, let alone at this stage, and why on earth did they take so long to contact us all.
We have a lot to absorb and emotions are running high, but this little baby has shown so much fight and I couldn't go through with a termination, so I don't think we will bother with the amnio as we aren't going to "use" the information.

My reflections on it all yesterday morning

That was one of the hardest nights I have had this pregnancy, I feel shattered this morning, neither DH and I slept much at all, both of us waking through the night in tears, I felt so angry, hurt and upset, why did we get put in this position, why did we have to go through this and why now.... I know that life is meant to challenge us, but I never expected to be pushed to such extreme limits.

When I announced my pregnancy it was with vigour that I was going to skip the NICU Rollercoaster and get to Full Term, but I didn't comprehend the rollercoaster of emotions that we have been for the pregnancy part on for the past 21 weeks....

I am calling my OB's office this morning, they open at 9:30am and organising an appointment to speak with my OB. There are questions we have, but I feel that within my heart that Flicker is ok... and as I can't even comtemplate Termination, so realistically the amnio is not the way to go, because of the shape of my uterus and the fact I have been having contractions makes the risk of the amnio so much higher, but it would also give the definitive answer that my DH is searching for.

I have been on the net - I am a careful "Googler ", finding out more about Low PAPPA, which is Low Pregnancy-Associated Plasma Protein A (PAPP-A), this has placed us in the high risk of chromosomal abnormality, but from my reading it can be indicative of a few things which I see are more fitting to my case, I have found a direct link to having a uterine septum and the positioning of the placenta in relation to that. And as we know my placenta is over the top of the septum and that placenta has always been on the smaller size. For these reasons my OB has been closely monitoring growth and doing regular Dopplers, with the expectation that the restriction is growth is more likely to occur after 30 weeks. This is one of the things I plan to discuss with my OB today.

On top of that if there was any retained placenta from the twin, this could also result in a Low PAPPA result, this is what the OB told us last night.

Flickers growth scan results from last night were pretty good, and putting growth ahead by a few days based on my "Official Dates" (or right on track with my dates of 30 weeks yesterday) Weight was 1556grams, up from 1440grams last Tuesday - give or take based on the accuracy of these things.

I have also looked closely at the range of soft markers that can be present in cases of DS, and I can't see any of them present in the scans we have of Flicker, but I will go through them with my OB today.

I know that in time this will get easier, but I know that DH would feel better about a definitive answer, where as I can just live with what ever we are given. And TBH I look at the figures and all of the information, not just the fact that we have crossed the line into the high risk category, where as I don't think he can get past that.

I am sorry if I have repeated myself everything is a bit of a haze right now, but hopefully soon I see clearer again.


Last night we went and saw our OB and this is what happened

I am so so so glad we went in and spoke with our OB this afternoon, it was a great debrief for DH and I. We went through all of the events of the past couple of days, and we asked a bucketload of questions.

We went through all of the results, the original and the new figures, we went through each component of the 12 weeks results and what each meant, we strongly believe that the Low PAPP-A is due to the poor placement and attachment of the placenta. And just one hiccup with a component of the testing can make a dramatic difference to the figures.

We went through the results of last nights scans and each Soft Marker that was looked at and are confident that visually there are no signs of DS. We showed our OB the 3D photo and she had a good look at the facial structure and agreed that the positioning of the eyes on the face, the don't look slanted in and the nose looks just like DD's

We went through all of the risks associated with the amnio, had we had it done early in pregnancy and doing it at this late stage and what we would or no do with that information. The reality is it is not worth the risk to do if before 34 weeks, my pregnancy is far from "stable" and although if a clean amnio was done the history of PPROM, a uterus that is contracting, ther would need to be quite a bit done to actually calm it down, it is just too complicated and too risky. And we have made the decision that if we have the amnio we aren't going to do anything with the results.

We feel at peace with our decisions, we have looked at all aspects and although we can make a decision about the amnio down the track, I don't want to risk this pregnancy in anyway and it isn't going to prove anything.

Had we found out this information much earlier... like when we should have... we would have had the option of an additional blood test which would have given us further information without needing an amnio. But we can't dwell on that.

So while we are still upset about what has happened and how it was handled, it was not the fault of the OB's at the clinic, we need to take our focus and minds away from that and just refocus on growing Flicker into a big fat chubby baby who will be perfect in every way