The lead in

First, a little background.

Sproglet emerged into this fine world in April of 2016, after a relatively comfortable and wonderful birth. My pregnancy had been fairly routine, although being of "Advanced Maternal Age" at 37 (fuck you, medical community), I'd undergone lots and lots of testing juuuust to make sure that everything was ok.

I had a Panorama scan at 13 weeks, a non-invasive test that they now offer to moms over the age of 35 to determine the risk of genetic abnormalities. I really wasn't particularly worried about the outcome of this test, in fact I was more excited by the idea that it could tell us our baby's gender at 12 weeks gestation (I'd been hoping and praying for a girl for some time). So when I got the call that my results had come back low risk, I was happy but WAY happier to call Hubs and tell him "We're having a girl!"

So that was all good. Still, I had to undergo further testing. Docs offered me additional, more invasive testing, like and Amnio or CVS just to further underline the "It's all good" results from the Panorama, but I demurred, since I figured the outcome of these tests wouldn't change my plans. I'd experienced at least two miscarriages prior to this pregnancy, and I guess in a sense I figured that this was my final attempt at giving Offspring a little sibling. If this fetus wasn't 100% healthy, well, we'd deal with it. Plus I didn't want to risk any further miscarriages by performing invasive tests.

Docs agreed and we just settled on working with Maternal-Fetal Medicine for high risk (ahem, *elderly* pregnancies) with lots of ultrasounds.

First few ultrasounds were pretty fine. Heartbeat nice and strong, with the baby growing as she should have been. Until my 20-week scan, where the doctor came in after the appointment to have a chat. My heart jumped into my throat as I flashed back to the October 2014 appointment, where the attending radiologist said the words "I'm sorry, we don't have a heartbeat anymore"...

I was semi-relieved when this doctor said "Everything looks good, with one exception. We can't see a nasal bone. Normally this would be cause for concern as this is a "soft-marker" for Down Syndrome, but because your Panorama test shows such a low risk, we're just going to assume the baby is at an awkward angle. Come back next week and we'll try again." Next week, still no nasal bone. Everyone just shrugged. At this point I started to think "Hmm.. something is wrong. I don't know what, but this feels off." But because we didn't have a diagnosis, we just carried on, watching her grow steadily and kicking the crap out of me from within. Yes, I had nightmares that my baby might be born looking like Voldemort.

Somewhere around week 28 or 30, we had another in depth scan. This time the doctor reported an enlarged ventricle in baby's brain... not too enlarged, but enough that he noticed. Another marker for Down Syndrome. At this point I decided that I had fallen into the teeny, tiny percentage of moms whose genetic testing just went off the rails. I started looking into raising a child who has Down Syndrome. I cried a lot but was buoyed by the words of parents who swore that, despite their initial fears, they'd learned that a child with Down was a privilege. I read the "Welcome to Holland" essay and talked to other moms, just trying to prepare for...I don't know, *something*. Down Syndrome, Edwards Sydrome. I didn't know what, I just had a sense that my kid was going to be born with something that set her apart from other kids.

So, after all that, nine (really ten) months of emotional rollercoasters, raising a 4 year old and preparing him to become a big brother, dealing with his own diagnostic challenges (nothing big, just sensory processing disorder), worrying about the new baby but feeling so much happiness whenever she landed one of her kicks/punches/headbutts to my kidneys/stomach/bladder, she came flying into the world in all her yucky, sticky, bluish glamour.

Really, I can't talk up my labor with her enough. It was awesome. I'd been hoping for a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), and I got my wish.  It was great- I was joking with the nurses, I had my deceased mom's picture on a ribbon around my wrist. Van Morrison was playing on the iPhone. Hubs and best friend let me watch cat videos in the delivery room.

I'd labored a bit at home, then was checked in and had an epidural, got some sleep, and pushed her out in 33 minutes. The delivery team almost didn't have time to get set up before she was here.

It was just the best day. So happy. And she was adorable!

Nothing was noticeably wrong with her- not that I was even thinking about that. Once they told me she was healthy, all I could do was enjoy the high from those crazy, fabulous oxytocin hormones. We did notice that her pinkies seemed double jointed, but all the doctors would say about that was "Huh. Maybe have an orthopedist look at those."

Her pediatrician, at her first appointment after birth, referred us to a Geneticist at Children's Hospital, which is where Sproglet's story has a little plot twist!