Pregnant woman scared by doctors and genetic counselors?

Question

I was OK until I got back from seeing the genetic counselor. When I talked to my husband about it he said oh don't worry about it - thats the genetic counselors and the doctors job to scare you. They have to tell you all of the facts.

Can you give me some stories about how the hearing the "facts" frightened you?

Answer 1

personally, it doesn't scare me.  it's not the doctor's job to scare you - your husband was being flippant and a bit cruel.

i do know a LOT of ppl who were scared - quite unnecessarily, because they just didn't understand the test results.

i don't think anybody should do the IPS/triple screen, etc.  it's ridiculous:  the false answer rate is incredibly high because if you're wrong about the date of conception, the answer will be skewed.    90% of ppl are because you honestly can't really know: it's possible to not conceive until ***four days*** after you have s*x!

so you do the triple screen and it tells you "oh, you have a 1 in 35 chance of having a down's syndrome baby".  well, according to the charts, that's a very low result - practically a dead certainty.  so then the poor woman has to have the amniocentesis to confirm yea or nay and that's more weeks of fear and stress until the results come back.

i say, if there's a real chance of a genetic problem AND you intend to terminate the pregnancy or you need to line up  resources if so, just go straight for the amniocentesis.

if it honestly doesn't matter to you if your baby has down's or spina bifida, skip the whole thing altogether.

for myself, with my first one, i had such a hard time hangnig onto her i skipped genetic counselling altogether even though just on paper, my odds of having a down's baby are something crazy like 1 in 17 based on maternal age (i'm 41), paternal age (47), and family history of neural tube defect (hare lip and cleft palate).

with this one, however, i am getting the amnio done because quite frankly, i will not carry through a pregnancy if the baby has a genetic defect.  it's not fair to the baby when i cannot provide for her care and keeping after i'm gone.  yes, sure, there are ppl panting to adopt a handicapped baby - they have any number of *thousands* from which to choose; they don't need me throwing another on the woodpile to join the untold number who aged out of the system while waiting in vain.