June 7, 2005 ~ The Right Road
Tuesday.
First the medical center where I had my first prenatal visit lost my request to transfer my records to the midwives. Then they claimed that they were delayed two weeks because the results to the lab work (from the blood that had been drawn almost a month before) hadn't come in on time. Then they claimed to have sent the records, but "they must have been lost in the mail, I guess." Finally, I demanded to be kept on the open phone line until the secretary copied and sent my records. Finally, two days later, the midwives had them. "Though they forgot to send the full lab results. Oh, well, this summary is enough for us to work with."
All the delays with the medical center and the awful service made me all the more secure in my decision to transfer away from there.
So, my midwife visit today. It lasted an hour and a half, very relaxed and personal. Mainly, she asked us a lot of questions about family history (we'd interviewed our parents beforehand, so we were well prepared), and we talked a lot about my medical history and what, ideally, we'd like the birth to be like. She made sure my uterus was measuring right for where I am in the pregnancy. And my blood pressure is still at 105/50, which is fine. Everything looks healthy.
We also heard the heartbeat on the Doppler, a sound that made both of us smile. Between 150 and 155 beats per minute, which is good.
The only big decision that Morgan and I have to make at this point is whether to have them perform the blood screening for neural tube defects and down syndrome. (A screening of my blood to check for "likelihood.") We have decided against it, though. We have many reasons.
One, the test has an extremely high rate of false positives. "Oops, turns out there was nothing wrong with your baby after all, too bad you decided to terminate the pregnancy based on this test, huh?" (Okay, in reality, they do further testing, to find out more likelihoods, but they're also extremely expensive and worrisome and still not certain).
Two, it's an incredibly expensive test, and not much covered by insurance.
Three, we're at an extremely low risk for any of those problems. I was taking folic acid from the very beginning, and a deficiency in that in the mother is the main cause of many such spinal and neural problems. I'm much younger than 35, which is when it starts becoming more of a possibility. And none of those defects run in either of our families.
Four, none of those defects have a treatment. The only possible treatment is, "terminate the pregnancy." Which isn't much of a treatment, if you ask me.
So, it looks to us like that test would just be cause for a lot of worry and more financial debt that we really can't afford. The only options if it finds anything are "continue with the pregnancy anyway, just incase it was a false positive," "run more expensive tests that also have a chance of false positives," or, "terminate the pregnancy and hope the tests were right." We wouldn't take that last option anyway, no matter the test results, so why bother taking the test at all?
It's also looking like we'll probably not have any more ultrasounds, unless something comes up tipping us off that there's something wrong. So far everything has looked very healthy and there really is no need, since we've decided not to learn the gender before birth. At first Morgan was ambivalent about this, but he's decided he'd like to have the surprise.
She gave me a referral for a chiropractor, alleluia! As soon as we're paid this month, we hope to make an appointment for that, so that these nerve problems that have been plaguing me can be more easily dealt with.
Morgan and I have been reading birth stories (first hand tellings). Excitement is starting to build. I am feeling very much empowered and looking forward to the experience, actually. I'm glad we've chosen the road we have.
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