Blog of Bermanism

The latest update on the impending parenthood of Rachel and I is that we opted to undergo a series of advanced genetic testing to more accurately determine the risk of our baby having developmental defects. The testing procedures were non-invasive, except for blood drawn from Rachel’s arm (which she loves, NOT!). The tests included a high resolution ultrasound (which was shown on the first post about Rachel’s pregnancy) and a series of blood tests. The ultrasound test looked for something called nuchal translucency, or fluid collected around the back of the neck where the neural tube would have closed. A high degree of nuchal translucency increases the chances of the presence of chromosomal abnormalities like Down’s syndrome (trisomy 21), Edward’s syndrome (trisomy 18) and Patau syndrome (trisomy 13). In addition, two rounds of blood tests, called the AFP tests, were administered to determine the likelihood that our baby had a neural tube defect, such as spina bifida (failure of neural tube closure and exposure of the spinal cord to the environment) and anacephaly (the lack of brain development). The was also a test for protein markers in Rachel’s blood that would indicate Down’s syndrome.

So, now that I’ve totally lost you, the results are in and there is a 1 in 10,000 chance that our baby has these problems, which is less than a 0.01% chance. So, this is really positive news and we’re quite happy that our baby will likely come out only as messed up as Rachel and I are already. Now all we have to do is not screw up the baby after birth. That’s gonna be interesting.

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