I am fortunate that my obstetrician is my friend. We went to medical school together and worked together until she decided to open up her own practice. I've been waiting for her to tell me the results of the Panorama test I had drawn 10 days ago. It detects fetal DNA in maternal blood as early as 9 weeks! It is a prenatal screen that detects chromosomal abnormalities and also detects the gender of the baby. I decided to get the test done so that I could find out as soon as possible if I was having a boy or girl, but also if there was something wrong, I wanted to be prepared. Laura, my doctor, texted me this afternoon asking if I was working. I told her that I was, but wasn't busy and was hoping she was going to let me know if I was having a boy or a girl!!!! I was expecting her to call or text back, but she didn't. Well, she must be busy. When I left work, I called her and left a voice message. I started to worry a little as to why she didn't just text me back, and why the nurse wasn't just calling me to tell me the results. I was probably just being paranoid.
Then she called. We were having a boy...and he has Down syndrome. The test read that there is a 99 out of 100 chance that he has Down syndrome. The test is extremely accurate. The Panorama website quotes a false positive rate of 0%. I chose to believe that the test was correct, and not to focus on the 1 in 100 chance of there not being Down syndrome. My initial response was overwhelming grief--mourning for the loss of his life being how I had envisioned. However, I was also grateful that if there was a chromosomal abnormality, it wasn't something that meant certain death in utero or shortly after birth, as like some chromosomal abnormalities. I also was grateful that he had something that was well known and well researched instead of a chromosomal abnormality few people knew anything about. Overall I knew that this was God's plan.
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