Decided to have Amnio - but what's it like?

[Boggler]

After a good NT scan but crap blood results my overall ds risk has come back as 1 in 36 which has upset me greatly. I'm 43 and this pregnancy was not planned but will be very much loved whatever the outcome. I won't terminate if it is ds but I 've realised that I can't spend the next 6 months looking on the Internet for something that says my bloods are fine (v low Papp-A). So I'm booking in for an amnio. I think I'm going to have it done privately as the consultant quotes a loss rate of less than 0.3%, whilst I haven't been able to find any stats on the NHS scores in my hospital. Does anyone know if the nhs publishes these stats anywhere? I'm not looking forward to having it done and I'm especially worried if it hurts, also what say I was to sneeze or cough! But need to know one way or another otherwise I think I will go mad!

I don't remember it hurting. It was a bit anxious, the doctors weren't sure I was far enough along, and ended up sending me home for a week. Then when they did it there was still quite a lot of debate and discord. They talked me through it and were very kind, though, even though I think they may have thought I'd taken the wrong decision to have amnio.