Thank you for all your kind words. It's been a trying few weeks.
Update in a nutshell:
While waiting for my NIPT results, I went to see Prof Nicolaides at the FMC. He repeated the NT and bloods, looked at soft markers and returned a much higher risk of 1:2. I had a CVS done there and then, because the wait for the NIPT would have simply agonising. And I was at rock bottom. In Nicolaides words: 'Have the CVS or go and get drunk until you hear back about the NIPT.'
He also diagnosed an AVSD.
CVS came back two days later positive for Trisomy 21. The baby is a boy, all the more heartbreaking because he's the fraternal twin of my 3 year old boy who was conceived via IVF at the same time.
UCH (an outstanding hospital) followed up the test with fetal cardiologists who actually dispute the AVSD. Though of course it's early to rule out heart or other organ defects.
They advised waiting for full karyotyping in case of placental mosaicism. That came back yesterday confirming the T21 DX.
It has been a heartbreaking time. I've read every study on Down Syndrome I can get my hands on, talked to doctors, watched documentaries, talked to God, friends, parents and searched the very depths of my spirit and soul.
In all my research, the recurring theme that haunts me is the child's later life. While I believe babyhood a and childhoods can be rich and rewarding for children with DS, the prospects for adult life look daunting, less supported, and potentially beset by dementia, deafness, loneliness and coping with parent's eventual death.
While that may seem a very bleak outlook, to me its a crucial consideration. Am I saddling this baby with a life that entails perhaps 20, 30 years of hardship just so I can have my precious third child?
To me, right now (and this is by no means a cut-and-dried decision), taking the decision to stop that potential suffering while the baby is still blissfully unaware seems like the most maternal thing to do. And it breaks my heart. Looking forward, I doubt I will ever recover from that decision. But whether I have to fight that demon for the rest of my life seems secondary to what I think is best for this little boy. I will cope, or at least have mechanisms to do so. The child may not.
This is a hugely personal decision of course, rife with inconsistent logic and doubts, but in the absence of a better way to make a decision, my instinct is the only thing I think I can trust.
For those who choose to carry on a T21 pregnancy, I think you're also doing the right thing.
Thank you for all your support and kindness so far. For whoever is also in the 1:44 camp, take heart: I was the 1. I hope you will all be the 43.