Birth Story

I've been meaning to post this for awhile but... I'm sorry all these posts aren't really in order.


At a visit to my obgyn I was getting my blood drawn for my thyroid test and she asked if I wanted a routine blood test. I said sure why not. When the results came in the doctor called. I remember thinking it was odd that she called me herself. She told me that I had an elevated risk for Down syndrome and that if I wanted to I could go to a hospital that had more advanced equipment and get an amniocentesis and a better ultrasound. I asked if it was necessary and she said no we can watch it here and if we see anything strange you can go to the other hospital. At the ultrasound they found soft markers for DS. They couldn't find a nasal bone and there were spots on his brain. I had an ultrasound monthy from then out. The ultrasound tech said that the heart looked fine. The next one showed a tiny nasal bone. The doctor said that they couldn't say for sure if he had it or not... nothing was absolutely certain. A friend said that a friend of hers had a baby with soft markers that came out "normal." Somehow I knew that he would have DS. Later on I had extra amniotic fluid but not enough to be too worrisome. It eventually resolved itself. The last few months we got the news that baby's femurs were shorter which they said was another marker. Also the baby's growth was in the 25th percentile then the next month the 20th. The Dr said that if the growth was less than 15th percentile then there was probably something wrong with the placenta and we would have to induce. At 37 weeks his growth rate was less than 15th percentile so we were off to the hospital. The Dr. wanted to take it slowly to make sure baby's lungs would be developed. When I got checked in they started pitocin to do a stress test. The heart rate was great and all the numbers were "beautiful" despite the placenta being "ugly." (I love my doctor's descriptive words :-) )After being assured that baby would make it through birth okay they turned off the pitocin for the night. A friend came over and they let me eat :) I didn't sleep much that night! The pitocin started early the next morning and after too many awful contractions my beautiful baby was born at 13:33. As it turned out the cord was short and not enough was getting to him. Indeed he did have Downs syndrome as you can tell by his eyes and ears. However he does seem to have fairly good muscle tone. They didn't think he was breathing well enough so they put him on oxygen. They also did tests to find that he had a heart murmer and would have to take an ambulance ride to the nearest nicu. He stayed in intensive care for about 10 days where he got heart tests, antibiotics and plenty of blood tests. The doctors determined that he had an atrioventricular canal defect which will need to be operated on at about 4 or 5 months. While there we saw more doctors than we had in years including a geneticist who confirmed the diagnosis and told us it was not the genetic type of DS. He is now doing very well. He has regular pediatric and cardiology visits and the doctors are pleased with his progress.