How many of you opt to have NT scan?

[tenar]

For us, it wasn't just my decision but my husband's too. We had the NT scan at 13 weeks.

He wanted to know that the baby was low risk for DS etc. He would have wanted to terminate the pregnancy. He was really frightened about the possibility of us having a disabled child, much more so than I am, and I guess I realised it was important to respect his worries about it.

I also wanted to know (would want to prepare myself for the arrival of a DS baby), but I am pretty sure that I would not have wanted to terminate the pregnancy. Not a nice situation to contemplate, disagreeing with my husband about something like that. I think my decision would prevail, but not sure what that would do to our marriage.

Anyway, in the end, knowing that the risk of DS is low anyway (and having a good understanding of statistics myself - I'm not easily scared by risk factors for stuff), I decided that the chance for both of us, especially my husband, to bond with our baby by seeing her more clearly looking like a little human was of such value that it was worth the small risk of finding out a stressful result and then having to wait for an amnio. This while pregnancy thing is so concrete to me and so abstract to him - he doesn't feel the kicks and movements, he doesn't experience the host of physical effects it has on me. So to him the baby is less important, less real, than she is to me. I think anything that gives my husband a greater opportunity to bond with the baby before she arrives is a good thing.

[fionas]

I had the NT test and would again. My reasons are not just because of my higher risk factor simply because of my age but that I'm a worry wart and I would want to know. If I didn't know, I would spend the whole of the pregnancy worrying anyway. I would also have an amnio to find out conclusively. I have no idea if I would terminate. Really, having thought about it a lot, still NO IDEA.

But, if the test was positve, I would want to use the time in the pregnancy to come to terms with it. For me, it would be too confronting to deal with those feelings the moment the baby arrives. I think when you're pregnant, you can't help to start visualising what sort of baby you're carrying, what their personality will be etc. A lot of parents with kids with disabilities talk about the grieving process - grieving because they had imagined having one sort of child and now they're dealing with someone completely different. I haven't expressed that well. I'm someone who would rather deal with those feelings during the pregnancy rather than straight afterwards. I think having a newborn is so full on anyway, I can't imagine having to deal with all the feelings of having an unexpectedly disabled child on top of that.

[briggsy's girl]

we chose to have the NT scan for a host of reasons, not least of which is the fact that my aunt has a disability with many of the characteristics of downs (but doesn't actually have downs) - it would not have caused us to terminate a pregnancy, but would have given us time to come to terms with what MIGHT be when the Gremlin arrives. having grown up with my aunt in my life (and her range of friends from special development school etc) as well as working with children with disabilities myself in the past, i wouldnt' even contemplate termination - but my DH has family members that also have a child with a genetic anomaly and he's had it grilled into him for the past 15 years how tortuous it is, and how, if he ever had children, he HAS to have cvs to make sure his child was normal or he'd have to force his partner to terminate. i felt it was important for him to know that it was all ok - the only thing that would have made me think about termination would have been if we had a pregnancy with issues that were incompatible with life...



FWIW - DH's family member with problems has Fragile X syndrome - it's not life threatening, it's not insurmountable - the child is big for it's size and a little emotionally and mentally slow. definitely not something i deem worthy of termination! i guess this was part of my reasoning with DH - needed him to know that things weren't unable to be overcome...

[HotI]

FWIW - DH's family member with problems has Fragile X syndrome - it's not life threatening, it's not insurmountable - the child is big for it's size and a little emotionally and mentally slow. definitely not something i deem worthy of termination! i guess this was part of my reasoning with DH - needed him to know that things weren't unable to be overcome...

DH could have genetic testing to see if he has inherited the Fragile X. If he hasn't inherited it, he can't pass it on to your kids.

You probably know this, but fragile X syndrome is caused by a 'dynamic' or expanding mutation. A segment of the gene expands between generations and if it gets too big, then the baby can have issues. It is only when the Mum has a semi-expanded gene and passes it on that the gene may expand further and the child may be affected. If Dad has a semi-expanded gene, the same size gene will be passed on to the child. So even if your DH has inherited the family fragile X gene, his kids will only inherit the same sized gene.