In Which Modern Medical Science Freaks Me the Hell Out

In case you haven’t realized this about me, I tend toward the control freak end of the spectrum.  During pregnancy this is a problem, mainly because I am expected to just sit around and wait patiently for 9 months while any number of horrendous things could go wrong with the child I am carrying, up to and including unforseen birthing trauma resulting in death and/or dismemberment for me or the baby.

Not that my overactive imagination is a problem or anything, or that I spend ENTIRELY too much time on the internet.  Internet, you are no friend of the slightly paranoid seeker of medical advice with hypochondriac tendencies.

During The Boy’s gestation, my control freakiness manifested itself during the “kick count” portion of the third trimester, where the OB/GYN wanted me to keep track of his movements on a daily basis.  I kind of went overboard–if I went a couple of hours without feeling movement, I would drink fruit juice to “wake him up.”  It’s a miracle that The Boy didn’t go through the fruit smoothie d.t.’s when he was born.

Fast forward to the current gestational event and my ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE.  Doctors do their level best to scare the crap out of you if you’re over 35 and pregnant.  I was greeted, during my first exam and interview, with a helpful, laminated (I guess so that the frightened tears of moms-to-be wouldn’t blur the type) sheet entitled “Testing for High Risk Pregnancies” which detailed all the ways I could endanger myself and the baby with needles, tissue sampling, etc.  They delineated each procedure, the attendant risk of miscarriage, and helpfully informed me that at age 40, my chance of having a baby with significant chromosomal problems (i.e. Down’s or Trisomy 13) was 1 in 64.

Cue freakout, part one.

So off I went for first trimester testing, during which they told me that they would do a bloodtest and ultrasound and determine my odds of Down’s and Trisomy.  It took a week for the results to come back, so cue freakout, part two.

The results were encouraging – my risk for Down’s was 1 in 1300, for trisomy it was 1 in 2200.  I opted for the regular 2nd trimester screening, and the freaking out was relegated to my normal levels of “oh dear God I could still spontaneously miscarry/have a child with two heads/give birth in a public toilet 3 months early.”  I know.  I’ve never claimed that I wasn’t a freak.

Two weeks ago, the family trotted off for the 2nd trimester screening, which looks at heart, brain, body measurements, bowels, and umbilical cord – plus it will tell you the baby’s gender.

It’s a girl, by the way.  The Boy has helpfully suggested naming the child “Happy.”  No.  I will not name my daughter after one of Snow White’s sidekicks.  But I digress.

Everything was normal, except for one thing – an echogenic bowel.  As the doctor helpfully explained, an echogenic bowel can just be a fluke, it can be a result of the baby swallowing some of your blood (eww, but it happens), or it can indicate a host of horrors, including cystic fibrosis, toxoplasmosis, several other exotic infections, and Down’s.

Well yippee freaking skip.  Cue freakout number three, followed closely by several mini internet research-sponsored freakouts.

The main question, of course, became “to amnio, or not to amnio.”  Hublet is opposed to amnio, because during our period of internet freaking out, he came across several articles which stated that the odds of the amnio causing a  miscarriage were twice those of the amnio actually finding a problem.  In other words, you had a higher probability of killing the baby for no apparent reason than you did of having a baby with a chromosomal problem.  Since we wouldn’t terminate regardless, the reasoning made sense.  Well, it made sense to anyone who wasn’t a total paranoid control freak, like me, for instance.

The control freak side of me, that wanted to be prepared for every eventuality, was thrown into a deathmatch with the paranoid freak side of me, which was, essentially, freaking the hell out about everything.  So I decided to do a follow-up ultrasound in a month, and talk to my regular doctors about whether or not to do an amnio in the meantime.

Today was my regular checkup.  I’m doing fine, the heartbeat is right in the middle of the normal range, and I managed to get possibly the LEAST touchy-feely of all the doctors at my practice with whom to discuss my trauma.

I asked him what he thought and this was the answer I got, “Well, your odds are good, but they aren’t zero.  Still, if you aren’t planning to terminate, no sense in doing amnio.”

Well thanks for nothing, Dr. Feelgood. Normally, I am not one to seek out the platitudes and handholding, but a brief nod in the direction of ”it’s probably fine” would have been welcome. 

So I freaked out, called Hublet and whined about Dr. Feelgood, ate a giant double cheeseburger, had some peanut M&Ms, and reflected on the fact that if I were living in the Dark Ages, my entire concern would be with whether or not the child would be born with a birthmark that indicated demonic possession or witchcraft.  I think that those worries might be easier on someone with my temperament–at least I could achieve peace of mind by burning some sage and making the sign of the evil eye at the local witchy woman without inadvertently killing my daughter.

Looks like the internal mental smackdown between control freak BAW and paranoid wackjob BAW will continue with no signs of abating.

And you probably will want to avoid me entirely during the kick count portion of the third trimester–a paranoid weirdo hopped up on fruit juice is not a pretty sight to behold.