40yrs old with SN child - would you get pregnant again?

[Chocol8]

Has anyone been in this position? What is the percentage of having another AS baby?

I did see a thread about the risks of late pregnancy a long time ago, but didn't take any notice as I thought I would never be in this situation.

Any comments would be gratefully received, thank you.

Well yes Socci, big enough to undergo CVS/amnio usually together with all the potential decisions that brings.

I Had to add this even though I have no advice to give. My very good friend had 2 nt children then one with cp, She then went onto have another dd and says she is so pleased she did as she has enjoyed Having her so much. I think it is every thing the youngest child does she notices.

Chocol8 - I had ds2 just before I turned 40. ds1 has autism. dd is fine but obviously concerned that I may have a boy again. Well we did have anohter one but I could tell from birth he was different to ds1. He's only 6 months now so its early days but am pretty confident he is NT.

Good luck with your decision.

Its funny that we were worried how DS would take DD. When she was born he was peed off with me and couldn't care less about her. I got back on track with him by bottle feeding her and being able to do things with him quickly. I felt that he still needed me more than she did We also worried about how he might treat her, apart from having autism, he'd had us and everything to himself for 7.5 years. Well, that's not the problem. The problem is HER pestering him! I went into his bedroom the other day to find him lying on his front on his bed with her sat on top of him yelling giddy up! You should have seen his face! So far the worst he does is leave if she gets too much.

Oh Davros reminds me of ds3. He is continually shoving ds1 out of the way (despite only being 13 months). He shouts at him as well and grabs toys from him.

how funny jj and davros - our dd2 is turning into a right monkey. Often she and dd1 get 'wrestling' which usually means dd1 is pinned to the ground with dd2( 15 months) laying across her and laughing with an almost evil chuckle . She also pesters dd1 - who we have to keep telling her to be gentle to her little sister even though it is dd2 being the pest

Oh blimey, just caught up with this thread. We are considering a 3rd.Chocol8, if you feel you want to try for a 3rd baby in your heart, then I think you should go for it. My heart tells me we should try but the genetics really scare me. We were given 1 in 20 chance of another child with autism- not 1 in 30! Why it is higher? Did you get 1 in 20 too Socci? Is it because we have girls? Eh?

this is an interesting thread. There is nothing on earth i would love more than to have another child but being over 40, well over 40, the fear of having another child with ASD puts me off. I would adopt with no hesitation but i worry my body has let me "down" in terms of being able to deal physically with another child who has special needs.

If you want another child, there is very little that will stop you, bar being unable to conceive. The overwhelming feeling of "wanting" another child is just so incredibly powerful. Maybe that is what you should be listening to, rather than scaring yourself about ASD. In my own case, I have lost that "overwhelming" need now and am happy with just having one. I suppose if someone could guarantee that my next child would be "perfect" i might go ahead and have another. There is so much to consider.

I'm on #3 having just turned 38. DD1 (age 11) is NT and DD2 (age 6 next week!) is HFA. TBH we weren't exactly trying for this one but knew we weren't being careful enough to make sure it didn't happen iyswim.

We were offered the amnio & scan - at a price - but turned it down because it wouldn't have changed our going through with the pg. We are aware of the SN running in the family and are prepared to accept whatever might show up and I think that is the key.

The last three scans we've had (they do them regularly here in South Africa) have shown up a wonky foot so we believe baby might at least have one club foot. His daddy had two club feet and spent yrs dealing with plaster casts and special shoes but we are aware of this and are prepared if this is the case or anything else that might show up. We believe having dd2 we have learned a lot we would not have learned elsewhere and this has made us stronger and more able to deal with SN if they arise.

We did have a time early in the pg where we thought "okay so how is this new babe going to fit into the family?" Like you say chocky, if you had another one your DS is excellent with babies and children and would probably love a sibling too. My 2 girls, especially dd2, are looking forward to their little brother and we think he will be an extremely positive addition to the family - especially for dd2.

It is a difficult decision to make but I do think siblings gain a lot from each other and have definitely noticed my dds spending more time enjoying each others company.

Bit of a ramble but our story and how we see the 'pregnancy or not' issue when you already have a child with SN.

A subject close to my heart this one. We have been thinking about this for a year or so (we have one ds age 4 with AS) and I am nearly 39. I prefer the odds mentioned here, our hospital have told us 1 in 20 for another ASD child and 1 in 5 for a 'related disorder' - which includes Tourettes, OCD, ADHD etc.

I think we are going to go for it though. It's our lives, and as Davros says, I don't want to be plagued by 'if onlies' in a few years time. Scary though eh? I've been looking online for ways to increase chance of conceiving a girl!

As for the age thing - Holly Hunter just had twins, aged 47.

Do remember the related disorder can be very mild. DS2 I'm sure had something very weird going on with the speech and language, he was a late talker and was originally dxed with a speech disorder as all the sounds came in in completely the wrong order. The SALT doing the assessment was laughing because he was so off the planet- said she'd nbever seen anything like it (I knew her well!) He was incomprehensible for quite a while, then suddenly one week (literally) he sorted it out- now aged 4 you would never know there had ever been anything weird going on.

Such a difficult one, can't offer you any advice as we had ds before dd was dx, but I can understand you wanting second, think you have to go with your instinct.

IG good to hear from you, hope you and bump are keeping well, how is RDI going?? x

One thing if you are thinking of getting pregnant again is to make sure you are at optimal health. Get detoxified, make sure you dont have mercury toxicity lurking in your system, get your bloods tested for other heavy metals and maintain as healthy a diet as you can during pregnancy. There is a company in the U.K. called Foresight and they are on the web. They do biomedical testing for moms and dads regarding conception, particularly for those who want to try IVF, but for other things too, just to make sure you are healthy. You can get your own hair and blood analysed and see what you need to boost, or what to fix. I would definitely consider having all the mercury taken out of my body, if i was going to get pregnant again.

The other thing of course, is that if you ONLY have a child with ASD/SN its a very different thing to decide whether to have another. If I'd already had an NT child I wouldn't have dared risk it, much as I'd have liked them to have an NT sibling (would like DD to have one). Its also the main reason my sister has stuck at just her DD, an only child but an NT only child.
With a different partner to Choc's DS I think the risks would be MUCH less. Shall we start thinking of names?

This is an interesting thread. I had ds at 38, and knew he was going to be an only, although he has 2 step siblings (much older). My stepson aged 23 has autism, and that was one of our fears when I was pg, along with the fact that I have odd, unidentifiable congenital muscle/skeletal abnormalities.

My parents were horrified when I told them I was pg. They thought I shouldn't even try (altho' they were just as worried about me, as they were about the possible outcome for a baby). But we wanted a baby, so we went for it. I did say I would abort if physical abnormalities became obvious.

But we thought the autism likelyhood was greatly reduced, because dh was now with me (only half the same gene pool).
We now feel that ds (aged 6) does exhibit some aspergers tendancies, to a borderline degree. I feel this must relate to dh and my stepsons autism.

Sorry rambled a bit, make of this post what you will.

Sorry, didn't mean to kill this.

Thanks everso much for all your messages guys!

There is a lot to consider but thanks also to Mama for the name of the company who does the testing - a consideration.

Davros, yes please names would be good... and also, do you have a fancy hat? I just asked him if he would marry me!!!!!!

Hmm Davros, you just made me think of a possible "solution" here to all my worries - a different partner!! I wonder if Brad Pitt or George Clooney would like to step up to the plate in the name of autism and provide a specimen he he.

Mama!
This thread is making me nervous.

Oh Choc, congratulations (I assume he said yes?). What wonderful news!!
Don't worry mmddww, I'd had the same thoughts, you have Brad, I'll have George, heh heh.

My DS1 has autism but he is very very high-functioning. We had our suspicions about him but at the time we decided to try for a DS2 we kept being reassured by various GPs and HVs that he was fine. DS2 is definitely not on the spectrum and has in fact been terrific for DS1 - he's the best thing we could ever have done for DS1 - they are very very close and I think it makes up in large part for the fact that DS1 has few friends and is pretty alone at school.

We also have a DS3 who is starting to demonstrate many of the same worrying symptoms that DS1 did at the same age, so, well, I can't say I'm exactly looking forward to going through it all again, but I know we will cope if we have to.

Make of that what you can/will!

Chocl8, I'm in a similar situation, I'm 36 and have an 8 month old with problems. We really want another child asap, we always wanted 2 or 3, (maybe 4!).

Mamadadawahwah - please could you post a link of the foresight people? I can't find it on Google. I had a broken filling and root canal surgery on it while I was pregnant and really want to be sure there is no mercury in my system.

Hi NTT. Here is Foresight's web address. They are in Bognor Regis.

www.foresight-preconception.org.uk/home-page.html

By the way, if you REALLY want to sort yourself out and find out where your body is another U.K. company which i use is IWDL www.iwdl.net/tests.htm

There is also a link somewhere and i will find it for you on "how to get healthy" before getting pregnant again to cut the risks of having a child with ASD, at least in terms of having your body at optimum health.

IWDL is a company specialising in all kinds of tests. Their hair analysis test which is about £50.00 i think is VERY good. They send your hair to a lab in the U.S. and you get a very detailed description of what is going on. Foresight's hair analysis is quite basic and will give you a general overview and for our purposes at the time was great. But if i was going to do a hair analysis again, i would go with IWDL. They send the tests to Doctor's Data in the U.S. Everything is looked at and compared and graded.

i will get back later with more info for you. I definitely would do as much testing before hand if i was going to get pregnant again. And its not just about mercury, its about other toxins as well. Its also about getting your vitamins up and your immune precursors up. Its very complicated but Foresight may be of great help here and they are very easy to talk to on the phone.

Hope that helps.

Oh, forgot something NTT. My child had very very low mercury and not high mercury, so you need to know what you are looking at with regards to heavy metals. In my child's case he was not excreting and at first glance it looked like he was fine with it. But he was excreting way less than other folks so it appears he is a non excretor and it may possibly be lodged in his system. The theory is that due to inability to excrete and compromised immune systems, that the mercury will simply not be able to excrete.

Also, i had my own tests done and it showed very high levels of mercury, cadmium LEAD? and aluminium. Turns out we had lead pipes. Lead is very very VERY bad in terms of autism and many children on the spectrum have high lead levels. Its in the air and the soil and what not.