What would you think?

[Cosmo89]

Sorry, I hope I'm posting in the right place about this. Posted previous thread in the Pregnancy forum which I don't think was quite the right place!

This is a much longer post than I'd envisaged - sorry! I hope you make it the whole way through. I posted yesterday about the 1 in 116 Downs result I got from the combined test. Everyone on MN has been brilliant and made me feel a lot better. These aren't the worst odds and we're still optimistic.

When I've explained the story in more detail though, friends have raised questions about the conduct of the Sonographer and I'd like to see what people think. Happy to admit I'm being overly sensitive. We're ok but it's not the best news to get, is it? And it may be that this is clouding my judgement.

From start to finish I found the process, which I expected to be joyous, very tough. The Sonographer didn't really engage with us, was very quiet, so much so that I was convinced something was really, really wrong. This was before she started doing the Nuchal measurements on the neck fluid (which was the bad result that brought everything down). But, I thought, after all, she's probably just concentrating on her job.

A couple of things niggled me though. She didn't know whether 1 in 116 was high risk or low risk. First, she said it was high. Then she corrected herself and said it was low. Later, I asked another midwife to confirm this and, as I thought, it was a high risk result; her mistake being explained by the changes in the high risk boundaries. OK I thought. These things happen. Bad day etc.

But there were other things - I asked her about the measurements. Our baby measured at 13w 6d and, as this is right at the end of the boundary, I asked whether that might make a difference to the NT result. No. Fair enough I thought, she knows what she's doing, but then she said "I could have dated it earlier than 13w 6d, but that would have made the test results worse, so I pushed it to the furthest I could possibly go." Seriously? You're altering the statistics on my child, purposely, to produce a better result? Didn't quite make sense to me, and I'd rather be given the most accurate statistics, but I thought 'well, perhaps she just hasn't explained this properly.'

My real gripe has come with the language she has used to us regarding our options.

When she told me about the amniocentesis procedure, for example, she then told me that I'd have to have the baby induced afterwards, as I would be too far gone for anything else. Now, I appreciate that I need to know these things but she was acting like 1. the test results were automatically going to be positive for Downs and 2. I would have made the choice to terminate. There was no 'If the results come back etc'. Just a predicted story about what was about to happen with my child, where "they will have to induce you", just as "they will have to insert a needle etc." Everything seemed very fixed in her mind as to what was going to happen.

THEN, she called me this morning, to book me in for an amnio. I asked to be booked in for the 20 week scan during this phone call (I didn't want this to be late) and she said "hmmm, well, I suppose I can send a report round to get them to send you a letter. YOU CAN ALWAYS CANCEL IT IF YOU DON'T NEED IT."

Is it just me (and several of my friends), or is this a bit extreme? It's made me really, really concerned that there's something she didn't tell us. Surely, if there was anything it's her duty to inform us of whatever she finds? Everything else, she said, looked normal: heart, face, body, legs etc. But I wonder whether there could be something she's seeing that she's not letting on?

And, secondly, aren't her comments just a little insensitive?

[saintlyjimjams]

Terrible. terrible. Do you want the amnio? If you don't you don't have to have it.

I think it was a sonographer who was telling someone (who had refused invasive testing) she should have a cvs with her second child and she was underestimating the effect of DS and should shouldn't do that when her elder dd with DS was sat in the room with her :rolls eyes:

The risk boundary thing I think is just one of those things - they probably alter the cut off at which they automatically offer amnio depending on budget or something like that but the bedside manner for the rest of it was appalling.

[shakemyhead]

Bedside manner terrible. Was this the sonographer or mw?
When we went for our nt scan we were just told the measurement then put in another room with mw to discuss risk and invasive testing.

With odds a good as that I would not try not to worry too much. It is screening not diognostic. Re 20 week scan app. They should fit you in when req. We came back from fetal medicine unit ( went for cvs but baby had died) for the 20 week scan app to be on doormat. They said it would be cancelled but not. As we had missed it they sent another out for a week later. Wouldn't want that to happen to anyone else.