Today was my "late" amnio appointment at Kings College hospital - probably one of the best places in the world to have it done. I am 31w6d today.
To recap, at 12 weeks we found out that due to my bad bloodwork, the baby has a 1 in 34 chance of having Down syndrome. We would not terminate for a non-lethal problem and I was not happy with the risks of an invasive procedure before viability.
The doctor confirmed the risks - the same as for earlier amnio, except the risk becomes preterm labour. So a 1% chance of preterm labour. I suspect it is probably not as high as this; I think they're only allowed to quote national levels. I can live with 1% anyway as I am surprised I even reached 32 weeks due to my other high risk issues related to my cervix!!
There is also a quoted 1 in 1,000 risk of infection. Again, I am fine with this. She said if there was an infection it would likely show up in the next day or so.
I wasn't sure if I was going to go ahead until the appointment but I had done my research and judging from various research papers on late amnios, none of which showed maternal or fetal loss, just "complications" (e.g. pPROM and earlier than expected delivery) so I was happy with the risks.
Firstly the doctor-sonographer did a really detailed scan and everything looked fine, including the heart - they even got in a specialist consultant to check that over. And another internal cervical length check!
Then it was time for the amnio. The needle wasn't quite the two foot sword I'd been hearing about in horror stories! It was more like six inches long and quite thin. They identified a big pocket of fluid beforehand to use, then scanned throughout the procedure. It didn't really hurt (no anaesthetics used) aside from a weird pinching sensation as it went in, and lasted about a minute. At no point did the needle touch the baby.
Afterwards I had to rest for 10-15 minutes just in case I fainted or anything! Then we went home.
I've had a few more contractions than usual which are now dying down, and I feel a bit crampier than usual but that's to be expected really. Baby is kicking as normal!
And now we have to wait. We're getting the PCR results (a better version than FISH) which means we should hear in 3-5 working days although the technology works faster than FISH. It's probably hospital bureaucracy causing the delay! 2-3 weeks for the full karyotype.
So Thursday at the earliest, possibly as late as Monday.
I feel sick just thinking about the phonecall. I know we've waited 20 weeks already but..
All the same, I guess I am just glad we will find out now and not have this wait before the birth and have it overshadow everything, which it was going to. And I can finally STOP obsessing over ultrasounds looking for markers and signs and maybe use the energy more productively. And if we do get bad results, I can use that energy to learn and prepare for a baby with Down syndrome instead of pointlessly going over numbers over and over with no answers.
I will update when I hear the results of course :)