Technology can really stink...

On Monday, I was marveling at the technology of the ultrasound that allows us to see our daughter before she is born, watch her little fingers and toes, see her heartbeat, and know that she is a little girl. But late yesterday afternoon, I just got super annoyed with it. Technology can be so wonderful, but it can also be alarmist, causing extra worry - when I already have too much.

My midwife called yesterday afternoon to let me know about a finding on the ultrasound. My little girl has echogenic cardiac foci - basically bright spots on her left ventricle that showed up on the ultrasound. This is called a "soft" marker for Downs syndrome. This can be something that normal, healthy unborn children have while their mom is in her 2nd trimester. The vast majority of children with this are born normal, or the foci disappears by age 5. However, because of my age (33), that increases my chances of the little lady having Downs to 1 in 315. Thankfully, she did not show any of the "hard" markers for Downs and has no heart defects.

When I was pregnant with Sam, I took the quad screen blood test. That came back with a higher risk for Downs, so my doctor had us take a Level II Ultrasound with genetic counseling. After days of worry in between the ultrasounds, come to find out my chances of Sam having Downs were still one in hundreds and the only way to really determine if he did was an amniocentesis. We chose not to risk it because we knew that we of course wouldn't abort him if he had it. The irksome part about that experience was that my doctor's office did a shoddy job really explaining what the risk factors were and caused an awful lot of stress and worry on my part. Hence one of the many reasons, that I switched to my midwife right before Sam was born.

Even though I knew with Sam that my chances were still very low, there was always that nagging thought behind the normal mom worries of "will my baby be healthy?". And now, I have that small nugget of truth behind the worries this time. I already struggle with worry, doubt, and trusting God for the little things of everyday life. Now the fact of the echogenic cardiac foci will become ammunition for the sniper. Most days I will be fine. But there are those days where my armor is weak, where I haven't got it on right, or when I simply just haven't put it on. And those are the days that I will struggle with worry. Darn it.

This time I specifically opted out of those screening blood tests. Because I didn't want any of those false alarms to get in my way. Because I know that I wouldn't change the course of my pregnancy if there was something wrong. But here I am again - with that small chance. I understand why they have to tell us, but I wish they didn't. And ironically, if I had taken the blood test and it was normal, they wouldn't have even mentioned the foci to me. But since I didn't have the blood test for them to compare, they needed to tell me about it. Thankfully, my midwife - love you FraNa - is awesome and took the time to thoroughly explain things to me.

Please pray for my little lady that she is healthy. And pray for me and Chris - that we will trust God, knowing that whatever path He has us on, He is there and will walk us through it. I know that He loves my little one more than I do and that is the truth I need to focus on.