Congrats everyone, and condolences, Hopey. Try again soon.

Jay is 7 weeks old now and last night he made his first unmistakable social smile, responding to my wife's laughter. That pretty much made my week.

Mom is very tired but things are getting better... he usually goes to sleep at 11ish, wakes up once during the night for a bottle, and then sleeps till morning. A sight better than sleep 15 minutes, awake 1 hour, sleep 15 minutes...

He is the greatest thing I've ever been a part of, and I can't wait to have another one. (How 'bout a girl, God?)

Update: we are having a boy, ETA 4/15/07. We went for a stage II ultrasound two weeks ago, because unbeknownst to me, there was a "problem" with the first one my wife had.

Turns out the fetus has renal pyelectasis, which is a soft marker for Down's Syndrome. There are apparently 12 "markers" which may indicate a chromosomal disorder, and the ultrasound showed only this one (which is a kidney disorder). The doctor indicated that the kidney thing could resolve itself as the baby develops further, or it might indicate that he has Down's. They can't tell for sure without doing an amniocentesis, which presents significant problems of their own. My wife is optimistic, and is trying to assure me that the doctor has to tell us that there is a risk, however slight, in order to cover himself. But I'm freaking out regardless.

Oh dude.

I'm not much for praying, but I'm going to send one up for you on this.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

oh that sucks. Your wife may well be right though. It would definitely be contingent on the doctor to warn you. Did he give you any indication of likelihoods or anything?

Yeah, me neither. I'll admit to saying a few prayers that things turn out okay here, though. Thanks for your thoughts.

We've already named him "Christian James", so hopefully that hedge will pay off. If not, eff you, Jobu.

He did use the phrase "I'm not God" a number of times, which I found interesting, when I asked him what his best guess was. But I pressed him on explaining what these "soft markers" were, and he said that the other 11 markers looked good. Things like hand/feet development, tibia length, ear and nose development, something to do with the heart, etc. The ultrasound was almost an hour long, so it appeared to be rather thorough.

After I got home, I started looking up the kidney disorder, and it appears that its fairly common in boys, and might turn out to be something that just requires some surgery after birth, antibiotics, or in the best case scenario, it resolves itself further along in the pregnancy.

Here's hoping that this all turns out to be a bunch of worrying for nothing. It's good that you were able to look this up in order to ease your mind a little bit.

I also agree with your wife. I took a "Medical Malpractice and the Law" course in University, and I can attest to the fact that doctors are definitely obligated to inform you of such things -- even if the odds of something really being wrong are extremely minimal. The doctor needs to cover his butt and be able to prove to a judge later on that he did inform you of the risk, just in case something *does* end up going wrong later on.

The fact that he said "I'm not God" should not be taken as either a good or a bad thing. He can't give you a definitive opinion, he can just let you know all of the facts. In his heart of hearts, he probably knows that there's very very little chance of something being wrong. However, he has to cover his butt for the slim chance that something does end up being wrong.

That being said, if the doctor really thought that there was a good chance that there was something seriously wrong with your baby, he would definitely tell you. He wouldn't hide this from you in order to spare your feelings. The fact that he's been a little ambiguous is definitely a good thing.

Thank you. I'm sure we'll be fine and will be able to put my name back up on the tote board before too long.

Thank you to everyone who posted on here and PM'd me with well-wishes. It is much appreciated.

Hopey,

I hope to see it soon. I predict a November baby for you. DCasper will attest I have the power to influence the universe in this way.

Sweet...if you're right, would you like me to name my first-born "Fonzie Hope" or would you prefer "Al Bundy Hope"? It's the least I can do.

Al is a good name for a boy. Peggy for a girl.

The man is truly amazing.
If there wasn't an ocean between db and my wife, I might be suspicious...

But Lord help me, if she pops out looking like this, I'm booking a flight my friend...

First time opening this thread. While my girlfriend isn't pregnant, I still wanted to post to congratulate all of you future parents and future parents of another. Babies are fantastic little things

By the way, here's my boy...

Nice pics Drew!! Thanks for posting them.
He is adorable!

Hi Sam

I thought I would chime in here, but wanted to wait until after I had been at work and could pick a few brains there.

You also said that everything else in on the level 2 ultrasound was normal...so the liklihood that a baby with isolated mild pyelectasis will have Downs is estimated to be about 1/3 of 1%, according to the people I spoke with.

Can I assume that your wife had the triple test or quad screen? Some women will refuse it, usually because thay say the results will not change anything for them. Its a test that looks for specific proteins and hormones that MAY be indicitive of some disorders, including Downs.

If she had it and it was normal, then I would be very reassured by this. How old is your wife?(if you don't mind my asking) 35 years and over can increase the risk of Downs. Amniocentesis is generally not done if the pyelectasis is the only finding.

I will say that in my 3 years I have seen only one Downs baby delivered. My good friend who has been in L&D 11 years has only seen a couple.

The doctors have to give the worst case scenarios. It would be irresponsible for them not to.

I am hoping that everything goes ok for all of you.

I forgot about this thread and got a pm, here's an update:

The identical twins should be here anyday now. They have been able to keep the gender a secret from us though I have a hunch they will be boys (I already have a 2 girls (3 and 1 yrs old).

They will be deciding on the day to induce at my wife's next tuesday appt. I thought that they would have already had to induce because in some ways it would be better for one of the twins to get out already.

One of them is about 5lbs and the other is just under 4lbs right now. The way it was described to me, one of the babies is getting nutrition through the ambilical cord like it's high speed internet and the other is on a dial up connection.

The smaller one is hanging in there though, so they haven't had to induce yet (they want the lungs to develop a little more). They aren't very considered with the size difference (this happens often with twins) but we are probably looking at a longer hospital stay for the smaller baby.

I cannot believe how big my wife has gotten. There is a BIG difference between having 1 and 2 in there. This should have been obvious I guess.

Anyway, I will re-post once it happens. Have a happy new year everyone.

any news?

I just got a pm from moldman, looks like they are on schedule.


And my name is frighteningly close to the top....

Wife had her 36 week doctor's appt this morning. She's gained 25 pounds (avg is ~35) and is 1cm dilated. Doc says everything's good and progressing normally.

Holy crap, I'm gonna be someone's dad!
Gotta start thinking of a new title.

'Sleepless in :insert location:' will work fine

edit: I was going to add sex-deprived, but you won't even notice with the sleep you'll be getting. Make the most of your time together now tho.

Hint: Nearer the due date, if she starts getting really restless, expect going to the hospital 12-24 hours later. Don't tell her that tho.

I am soooooo excited for this one! (I talked a little to Mrs. Casper early on)
Its really good that she is dilating. Her body is starting to do the work already. I send a lot of first timers home even if they are contracting. There has to be change for it to be considered real labor. But, if in doubt call your doctor and they will send you in to be evaluated. Sometimes that is good so you know what to expect.

"Holy crap, I'm gonna be someone's dad!"

This is a GOOD thing!

This might end up being a bit long, but I want to share my experiences of the past couple weeks with regards to being assessed a high risk for Down Syndrome and give a bit of a trip report about our visit with the perinatologist and amniocentesis test.

My wife is 35 now, and will be 36 at the time she is expected to deliver the baby. This means that she is already assigned a slightly higher risk factor for the baby to have certain genetic defects, with the most common being Down Syndrome. She elected to have the quad marker screen on the advice of her doctor, not expecting any issues to be found. Her appointment for this was on 12/19. On 12/26 she called me at work very upset. Her screen results came back "abnormal" indicating a high risk for Down Syndrome (the doctor told her the risk factor was 1 in 88). They set up an appointment for us to see a specialist (perinatologist) for "genetic counselling" and further testing. Neither of us quite understood what that meant, so we did some web research to learn more about the results.

Through our research we learned that the prenatal screening tests triple screen and quad screen have a very high rate of false positive results. What happens is the doctor plugs in several numbers into an equation that spits out a risk assessment. Some of those factors are the mother's age at the time of delivery, the blood test results, the due date, etc. This is how we were given the 1 in 88 risk factor. It really turns out that the actual chance of the baby having Down Syndrome is much less than that statistically speaking, but it caused us much anxiety as we waited for the appointment with the specialist.

We arrived at the specialist clinic on Wednesday 1/3 for our appointment feeling pretty positive that we would receive good news, but still anxious to get a diagnosis. The first step is to have what is called a Level 2 ultrasound. This is a detailed ultrasound analysis where they check for soft markers (physical indicators that could indicate certain birth defects). Some of these include measurements of the head and long bones, inspecting the lining of the heart chambers, cysts on the kidneys, obstructed bowels, and several others. They also check for other indicators for birth defects such as club foot and cleft lip. This lasted about 45 minutes or so. After the ultrasound was complete we sat down and discussed the results with the perinatologist. She said that they did not see any soft markers for Down Syndrome, nor any other birth defects. This was a great relief to us, but the doctor told us that even with no soft markers on the ultrasound that we could still only be about 70% sure the baby didn't have Down Syndrome. The only way we could be positive was to have an amniocentesis. There is a small risk of miscarriage with amniocentesis, but the doctor told us that it was actually a smaller risk than that of a natural miscarriage. She has performed 200-300 amniocentesis per year for 23 years and had 7 women have a miscarriage due to the amniocentesis during that time. It is a pretty expensive test, but we decided that we wanted to have the peace of mind and know for sure so my wife decided to get the amniocentesis.

The amniotic fluid is removed from the uterus using a 3 1/2 inch spinal needle. It takes about 2-3 minutes to draw off enough amniotic fluid to test. My wife said that it wasn't as bad as she had anticipated, but she did have some cramping for a day. It takes about 10 days to 2 weeks to get full results back from the test, but you can get some rapid results with a FISH test. We got these reults back today and confirmed that the baby doesn't have Down Syndrome (the FISH test checks for issues with chromosomes 13, 18, and 21).

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully someone might find some of this information helpful.

Thanks for the report.

My wife went in for the quad screen last Thursday (Jan 4), and we got a call this morning that her results came back "abnormal" for a higher risk for Down Syndrome.

We have an ultrasound at 8:30 AM EST tomorrow, Jan 9. My wife is only 29, and this is our first, so we're really anxious, even though the chances of anything actually being wrong are still pretty slim.

jb

Along the lines of abnormal test results: pretty much all states do a newborn screening for certain conditions which are good to catch in infancy. On this test, our new son tested positive for galactosemia. Someone with this condition has either none or a small amount of the enzyme required to break down milk, which can lead to severe problems if not treated.

When we were initially told about this, we were led to believe that he likely had classical galactosemia, which means he has none of the enzyme at all and he can never have milk for the rest of his life. But after clarification about his test score from our doctor (plus some combing of medical websites and doing research), we started to think he probably just had a milder variant called Duarte galactosemia. A follow-up test confirmed that, so that's where we're at. Basically, this just means reduced amounts of milk in the first year of life (we alternate giving him breastmilk and soy formula) and you can gradually phase milk in after that. So it's not a huge deal for us, but it keeps my wife from being able to nurse regularly which is a bit of a bummer for her. Plus it provided quite a scare when we weren't initially given all the facts, and then some stress as we had to wait and wait for the test results (it takes about a week to do the screening).

Incidentally this condition is pretty rare -- the classical (no milk ever) variant occurs in 1/40,000 live births. The Duarte variant is 1/2,000.

As I was reading your story, I was holding my breath hoping that it would work out well for you in the end. I'm very happy that your story had a good ending!