Due May 2024? Part 2

[Nina7]

Hi all, just continuing the previous thread.

@Holdmysunhat I got the seasickness bands you suggested, I think they're great!!

@Nina7 thats great news - congratulations!!!

@SarahBowie our NHS offered an antenatal course. It was informative but I think people go to NCT as they’re better for meeting other local parents.

@PeppedUp ah ok I just thought that you could also meet people at the NHS ones too so wondered why people paid for NCT. It’s nearly £300 in my area!

The NHS ones I've been offered are online only I think so that's why i chose it. Its bloody expensive though!

@Bumblingonby Oh no I don’t want online! I better look at NCT in more detail before it gets booked up. Was hoping to avoid that cost!

@Nina7 That's great news! :)

@SarahBowie agreed, it is ridiculously expensive. I didn’t end up making lifelong friends as ours was online due to the pandemic and we weren’t grouped with local parents. Despite that it was still useful to have a WhatsApp group of people to chat to during the early months that were going through the same thing.

Antenatal classes are quite expensive...
I joined a pregnancy yoga class and, even though most of the mums are later in the pregnancy, as weeks progress there are more joining in early stages, so I'm hoping that this will also bring some local connection with other parents with similar DD.
They also have a WhatsApp group with loads of newborns and birthing stories and they also do mum&baby yoga afterwards, which sounds like a new parents' group.

@PeppedUp that’s annoying when you’ve spent money. My mum is still friends with her antenatal group nearly 36 years later!

@Nina7 pregnancy yoga is great! I’ve joined too and love the little WhatsApp group. One of our ladies had her baby at the weekend and he’s adorable, we’ve another one due on Monday! A new girl just joined and she’s the same stage as me but I didn’t get a chance to chat to her properly so hopefully I’ll get to know her. I’ve made a friend but she’s 4 weeks ahead of me, she lives fairly close to me though so a potential mum friend.

For people that have had their 12 week scan results back, how long did the letter take to arrive? I had my scan/blood test 16 days ago and still haven’t received anything.

Wow so many of you are so organised with your NCT already booked! I’m going to book today and I’m so stuck on which to go for.

Im due may 19th and my options are either

6th march-3rd april
or
4th April- 25th April

which do you guys think I should go for? I’m so indecisive!

@LondonGirl1992 I’m due the same day as you. If you have a look on the NCT site it recommends the dates based for you based on your due date.

I was given an option of 9-14 March or 27 April-2 May. I’ll go with the one ending in may as the advice on the site says the earlier course might have people with an earlier due date than me.

@PeppedUp It was about a week for me.

@PeppedUp I've not had mine yet but was told I'd have a phone call within 10 working days (I'm on day 6) if anything was higher risk, and no news is good news. Appreciate different areas may be different, though.

I never had a level and that was 3 and a half weeks ago for me, just checked badger notes and all was updated in there and low risk hence no phone call.

Hi everyone and congratulations :)

I had my dating scan on Monday and my EDD changed from 1st June to 25th May.

It was so exciting to see little one, but the NT measurement was high and now I'm flapping and anxious, expecting a phone call any day with a high chance result for abnormalities...

It's good to see that others have had normal NIPT testing after being higher risk, but I'm in this limbo where I'm just so anxious and don't know what's going on. I know it's hard to make any decisions or plans until/unless I hear the high chance result, but with a NT measurement of 3.4mm and awful sickness this time around, I'm expecting the worst. I'm 31, so shouldn't be too high risk based on age, but I'm sure it'll factor in substantially more than in my last pregnancies when I was 25 and 28.

What were everybody else's nuchal translucency measurements?

I snapped a photo of it written down before I got my blood test, nobody mentioned anything to me, but I know it was much higher than with my two previous babies, so I googled it and it's definitely elevated.

What is also frustrating and confusing is that the ultrasound technician seemed to really struggle to get the measurement, baby was lying 'upside down' apparently on their belly and arching their back a lot, and I wonder if that could have made the measurement look bigger?? But I have no way of knowing yet. I'm driving myself a bit crazy.

And still throwing up 1-3 times a day 😢

@SarahBowie we were told the local NCT group have taken over from the NHS post Covid, they haven't mentioned that it costs anything. I guess it varies across areas.

Poor you @Edgeofthesea Your NT reading is only a touch higher than average and if it’s any consolation your HcG in isolation doesn’t mean much and you can’t really tell if it’s going to be high based on your morning sickness.

Plus Patau/Edwards is usually associated with lower HcG. I googled the hell out of this as I have much worse morning sickness this time compared to my last preg. My HCG was high than average but I came back as very low risk (I’m not a young mum either!)

Fingers crossed you can relax very soon :) Take care of yourself

Thank you so much @Holdmysunhat , that's a lovely reassuring reply. I know it might be nothing, and even if it does come back high chance, the NIPT could well be fine, but it's so hard worrying and waiting.

You'd think 3rd time around, I'd be more relaxed, knowing that there's often stress and uncertainty even when things are fine, but it doesn't get easier for me!

@Edgeofthesea I'm really feeling for you, this stress is horrible...
I'm no expert but with 3.4mm, it'll probably come back as high chance (although it depends on the overall size of the fetus), but again that doesn't mean a lot until you've got the NIPT results (or the actual diagnostic test).

It really hard because all these tests take time (I got the phone call when they told me it was high risk on Thursday 9/11 , two days after the scan, had the blood draw for the NIPT the same afternoon by the midwife and got the low risk NIPT result on Monday 20/11) and it is inevitably a very stressful time when you doubt everything and can't think of all the nice stuff like booking the NCT courses etc etc 🙁

I wish you a lot of courage and please try to stay as positive as you can. Do whatever helps you to get distracted and feel nice until you get your good results 💖.

I would also agree with @Holdmysunhat that symptoms and HCG levels are not related in the same way in every pregnancy. I've never been sick, only nauseous, and my HCG was 291000 (~6.1 MoM), so really high...

This post helped me a lot to understand the calculations on the high/low risk assessment:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/antenatal_tests_choices/4939237-info-for-those-with-a-high-risk-screening-result

Thanks @Nina7 , it's also really good to hear your timeline of when you heard news and had tests. My scan was Monday afternoon and still no word from midwife yet, weirdly I'll probably feel better once they've just told me what's going on and then I can plan for whatever comes next.

The thread you linked is really helpful. I do have some concerns about NIPT not being very accurate though - looks like some people have false negatives, and quite a lot of people (over 50%) have false positives. I'm not sure I'd feel reassured without CVS/amnio but sincerely hoping it doesn't get that far. How trustworthy do you think the NIPT is?

Ah I really feel for you- it’s such a horrible waiting game waiting on the results! I have everything crossed for you!

I got mine a while ago and my Down syndrome was 1/200 which was so much higher than I expected and hoped for. I’ve gone back and forth worrying but now I’ve just accepted it and put it to the back of my mind. I opted not to have any further testing.

Try your best not to worry because ultimately that won’t change anything- but it can put such a lot of stress on your body and baby. Sending you all the good vibes!

@Sa11yCinnamon that is so long to wait for a high risk result! Ours is three days, so the fact I haven’t had a call is good but I just want to see it on paper to have it all confirmed.

Unfortunately our trust doesn’t use Badger Notes, but I’ve just left a message with the midwives so hopefully they get back to me and can tell me over the phone.

@Edgeofthesea sorry to hear you’re going through a stressful wait. It sounds like your NT was on the lower end of being high risk so hopefully that works in your favour x

@Edgeofthesea , from my understanding the chances of a false negative for a NIPT are really low (less than 1%). On the other hand, there are much higher chances for a false positive, but if one gets a positive NIPT, the NHS will offer CVS/amnio.

With this thinking, and taking into account that my initial risk was 1/58 from the combined test (therefore relatively low chances anyway), when I got a negative NIPT I was totally relieved!

We actually had a private NIPT the day I had the scan (whose results arrived the same day with the NHS NIPT.
We had discussed with my partner and we had decided that if one NIPT (especially the NHS one) came negative, we would ignore the other one even if it was positive, just because a negative result is much more reliable than a positive, and we'd have to draw a line with how much reassurance we would need.

There was a very nice post about NIPT sensitivity and specificity from someone that did sound like an expert, I'll see if I can find it

Thank you everyone for replying and sharing, it honestly helps a lot just to be able to share how I'm feeling about it with people who understand. I really hope I'm worrying for nothing...I will update either way whenever I hear.

The nurse who took my bloods for the screening said if low risk, it would be uploaded to Badger Notes within 2 weeks, if high risk I'd get a phone call within a week. So if I get to end of play Monday without a phone call, I guess that's good news (though hard to tell for sure with the NHS unfortunately).

@PeppedUp You're right, 3.4mm is on the lower side of high and nobody has even said anything about it - other than there being a lot of faffing to double check the measurement, I suppose because if it crept up to 3.5mm they would have had a conversation with me straight away.

@Nina7 I'm so glad you got reassuring news from the NIPT 🙏 I totally understand your thinking with having private NIPT too, that's a good way to look at it.

Has anyone here used/considered the app Peanut? I’d love to make other pregnant friends in my local area as none of my friends are in the same position but I don’t know if it’s weird to join at 14 weeks and whether I’m best waiting!