DSD abortion thread part II

[GivesHeadlessHorseman]

carry on ladies....

Look, even if she 'planned' it, what do you think she planned? To f&ck up tess's life? She planned to have a baby, she didn't really think it through because she is only 14. Now they all have to deal with the consequences. But calling her sly and raging at her isn't going to help the situation is it?

So it looks like they have a slightly higher risk than a 20-25 year old of having a baby with Down's but then the "risk" goes down aagain. Whether this is down to teenager sbeing more likely to be late bookers and too late for tests/an abortion for medical reasons I don't know.

I agree she needed to know the truth but as for the "moral ground" I do not agree with that, If your morals come in to play when doing a job like that then you should not be in that job.

Oh bless her, Tess she must have been keeping it in to ensure that she was able to keep the baby. She must have been so frightened all the time that you would notice.

So for you, too. Don't feel bad for being angry - you feel cheated, and it is a different situation than you have prepared yourself for.

Take your time. There is no rush right now, is there?

toddlers can be sly fgs, they can make plans to do wholly unsuitable things because they are little and don't know any better

this is a 14yo child who has done something she shouldn't have because she didn't understand the implications - she still doesn't

I find it really strange that people seem to be saying "Ah - so she isn't a frightened child after all, she plotted the whole thing"

if she did, that is MORE evidence of her immaturity and vulnerability than anything else IMO

Maybe she told you now Tess because she might have felt the baby move or something and knows now that it IS real and she won't be able to conceal it much longer...?

I agree Sleeves, No 'norm' 14 yr old would do this...This young girl sounds like she has very deep issues... Don't forget about you though Tess...

Exactly, greensleeves.

I think what I was saying, is that it appears she had a plan, so she needs to follow it through, rather than saying she is a caniving grown up doing this with a sensible head on. We can't take this away from her, she needs to face up to reality tbh.

sorry OP, I am being a bit of a tub-thumper now, and I will stop it

I think you are handling it all brilliantly and I really feel for you - all of you

WRT the amnio - I think that she is entitled to confidentiality with all and any results, if she requests that you are not told, then the hospital can't and won't do anything about it.

TBH though, if she refuses to tell you then that may well give you the answer that there is something wrong there.

You put that well, msrisotto, far better than I have.

Tess try not to be to hard on her whether she knew or not she is still a scared 14yo who is obviously in a very bad place to conceal all this from you. Also according to that figure u20s only have a higer risk of downs than women aged 20-25 but lower risk than the rest (which is when the majority of babies are conceived) So I don't think she needs the amnio although that is obviosly yours and your DH choice.

Oh God, Tess. I've just caught up with this and the point where you said the sonographer confirmed 15+4 made me go all shaky and tearful. I just can't begin to imagine how you felt when you heard those words. Up until then there was always a ray of hope that she might see sense for all your sakes.

If it had been me in there with my daughter I would have had my own mini breakdown on the spot.

But I must agree, it occurred to me too, that she has deliberately kept this from you up to the point where she knows you can do very little about it.

If she was not having sex regularly and she can pinpoint the school trip or party as her conception time, she must have been ticking off the weeks until she was 'safe' to tell you. Little minx.

At east it narrows down the father a bit. To be honest now you've done your softly softly act with her I think you are quite entitled to lose you rag and shout and scream and refuse to support her in anything until she tells you who he is. And then she can have the job of telling him, in front of his parents, what she has in store for him for the next 18 years of his life.

I really don't see a cunning schemer here. She probably assumes she's almost four months along because she hasn't had sex more than once or maybe twice, or a few times in the week of the school trip if that's when it happened. Hence knowing when she must have got pregnant. And her friends could equally have told her all sorts of wild stories about abortion that she later checked on google, or maybe she googled it the night before the scan.

Well, that kind of thing is her choice, but it will fall to Tess and her dad to help her make sensible decisions, obviously.

I hope that you can all access family counselling ASAP, Tess

I think the approach you take to the amnio is ask her to give you good reasons why she doesn't want to have it, just not liking a big needle isn't enough. There are valid reasons she may not want to have it - risk of miscarriage, not wanting an abortion irrespective of the result, and the needle may be part of that, i.e. the benefit to be gained from the procedure doesn't outweigh the scary thought of the big needle.

I don't think its unreasonable to suggest to her that you want her to start to try to make adult decisions and the amnio is a good place to start.

Hello Tess, I've been reading this thread since the start, although on the second one, I've been skimming it and focusing on your posts. I really feel for you; what a difficult situation. I think you're handling it brilliantly.

I wanted to address the issue of the nuchal scan/amniocentesis. From what you said in your post, someone has posted that teenage mothers are more at risk of having babies with SN, therefore people are advising you to push DSD into having an amnio. The nuchal scan, as you know, is a screening tool for Trisomy 21 (DS), whereas amniocentesis is a diagnostis test for DS, and also Trisomies 18 & 13 (Edward's and Patau's syndromes). Teenagers are at very low risk of having a baby with any of the Trisomy syndromes; the risk of these increases with age. To be honest, therefore, I wouldn't think having an amniocentesis would be particularly useful. I've seen it done, and it's not a pleasant procedure.

There are, however, other congenital malformations which are more likely in the babies of teenage mothers. Here's a paper about that, and I'm sure you'll find lots more if you search on pubmed (the site I've linked to.

humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/1730.full

The anomaly scan, which is done at around 20 weeks, is the one where they scan in great detail, looking for abnormalities. If there's any problem, they're very likely to pick it up then.

Gosh, this thread is moving so fast and there's so much going on, but I am prompted to reply after GHH's post of 18:09 - I think after all the events of today and particularly the realisation that she knew what she was doing timewise and the correlation with the trip away, she definitely knows exactly who the father is adn I'm afraid that you, she and H ahev to sit down tonight and it all comes out... WHo is he, what happened, what happens next. Yes, she is young and scared, but she's about to have to grow up very quickly and that starts now.

I think she waited until the last minute before she had a bump showing before telling, not ticking off the weeks until abortion was more difficult (unless she has read the law and knows her rights...)

Sorry this is the pubmed site Tess. Another article on the same topic.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18259659

Poor little thing, I think she must have been keeping it safe too.