May 4, 2007 - UCSF

Many women who have been pregnant in the last 5 years has had the option given to them for an alpha feto protein SCREENING blood test also known as AFP. This test SCREENS for various birth defects i.e. genetic defects but can only be done between 15-20 weeks of pregnancy to get an accurate cholesterol, horomone, and protein count.
This SCREENING is an advantage to some, but can cause others false positives. The AFP SCREENING is interesting: when the fetus sheds its skins cells they recycle into the mothers blood stream, and from there the lab can draw the mothers blood looking at the babys level of horomone, cholesterol, and protein.

At the end of April I had gone in to have my AFP screening done. They took my blood, I watched them label it and put it into the State of California Genetic Diagnosis Center bag for shipping. All was going well until I received a phone call at work on Monday April 30th from the midwife at my doctors office. She asked me how I was, and asked if I was okay to talk. She proeceeded with letting me know the levels of my AFP SCREENING and that they were a little off in a certain area. The area that it came back was the horomone area and it gave a result that there was a 1/55 chance that this baby may have downs syndrome.

I started to cry...not the small tears but chunky, gloppy tears and snot.
She further explained what the results meant, but still to me it was unclear. She reminded me again that it was just a SCREENING and alot of women have false positives. She gave me the information for the UCSF genetic diagnosis ceneter and also let me know my options. They would do a level 2 ultra sound which see into the fetus in 4D, and I also have the option for an amniocentesis. I called UCSF immediately for an appointment. They got me in on Friday, May 4th. We spoke to a genetic counselor before our ultra sound. She explained to us that there was a 2% chance the baby would have downs syndrome, and a 98% chance not.
My heart began to feel some relief. The 4D ultra sound looks into their organs, including the brain functions and monitoring the heart beat. They checked the kidneys, digestive system, heart, lungs, limbs, brain (extensively0, and monitored the heart valves extensively as well. They told us that all looked normal, and nothing was leaning towards the downs. If downs were presence the heart may have had problems, the umnbilical cord would only have two blood vessels instead of three, limbs would have been formed shorter i.e. short neck, legs, and facial features. But SHE was beautiful. Yes, SHE... they called her a photgenic fetus.