Hi Sophie, and hello to anyone else who may be seeking info about this subject.
I am glad to see a recent post in this thread because I too have just been diagnosed with a toxoplasmosis seroconversion during pregnancy. I live in France and so have been screened monthly for the antibodies since the start of my pregnancy: my tests came back negative until the one from last week, at almost 17 weeks of gestation. I'm guessing the infection occurred at around 15 weeks based on the fact that IgGs were present at a relatively low level, and they usually take 2 weeks to appear.
That timing fits with a probable cause for contamination, I now realize, and having an idea of how I contracted the disease is making the guilt that much worse. I was craving New Orleans-style red beans & rice, so I chose a recipe with pickled pork, which you make by marinating the pork for two days. I got the pork from my local butcher, who advertises sustainably/humanely raised pork, and put the pork in a pot in the fridge with the marinade. The next day I opened my tiny fridge and somehow the marinade spilled everywhere: all over the fridge and the floor of my kitchen. I cleaned everything with soapy water, but I should have used bleach.
What I later found out is that while toxoplasmosis is rare in industrially raised pork, it is very common in "artisanally raised" pork, especially in France. So my efforts to be a conscious consumer may have been part of my undoing (in fact, these same efforts are also what led me to clean my fridge with Dr. Bronner's castille soap rather than a harsher antibacterial product that may have killed the parasite...) The marinade must have contaminated other foods in my fridge without my realizing it.
As soon as I received the bloodwork results I went to the ER at the hospital where I am registered to give birth. They did an ultrasound to verify the "vitality" of the fetus (thank goodness, he or she is still alive indeed), and I was immediately given a prescription for spiramycine, an antibiotic thought to limit the risk of transmission to the fetus.
The hospital followed up by giving me an appointment with a specialist this Tuesday. The standard procedure here seems to be to repeat the bloodwork two weeks after the first positive, mainly to date the infection, then to schedule amniocentesis at least four weeks after the presumed date of maternal infection. If the amnio shows the fetus has been infected, I will be offered anti-parasite drugs (pyramethamine and sulfadiazine), although there is lots of debate about whether these are actually more effective than the antibiotic alone at slowing down the parasite or limiting the severity of its effects on the fetus. Regardless of the amnio results, I will continue taking spiramyacine for the duration of my pregnancy and will have frequent ultrasounds (once a month or once every 15 days, depending on the way things progress).
How to describe the level of guilt I am carrying around now? I have done a few stupid things in my life, but none come close to knowing I have potentially rendered my own child mentally retarded or blind, or made him or her "incompatible with life," as the ER nurse put it. ("If a later ultrasound reveals abnormalities that are incompatible with life, a medical abortion may be proposed").
This guilt was compounded day before yesterday when I clumsily knocked my pelvis up againt a table corner at the office, hard enough that it's a little sore today. This is probably highly irrational, but I am telling myself that I may have ruptured my placenta if it is anterior-facing (I forgot to ask about its placement during the ultrasound), and that this rupture is going to allow the toxoplasmosis parasite to reach my fetus.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing all of this other than in the hopes of connecting with someone else who is going through the same thing. Do you have any news since your post in early February? Are you planning to undergo amniocentesis? I would love to hear your story just to feel a little less alone. So much of the info online about toxoplasmosis is just about reassuring women how rare it is: not exactly useful in my situation.
My thoughts and prayers go out to all the other mamas coping with the same diagnosis at any stage of their pregnancy.
Laura