In the Beginning

Ok so I find out that I am pregnant with my 3rd child, my husband and I are so happy and immediately start planning for the arrival.  I go to my doctors every month and everything looks and sounds great.  I had refused the AFP (alpha-feta protein) testing because what was the point I already had two healthy, happy children and I was only 27 years old.  So in my mind my chances of having a child with any disabilities was the furthest thing from my mind since I already had 2 "normal" children and I was nowhere near the age of 35.  Well my son started to become sick constantly and I wanted to get to the bottom of it and they were testing him for all kinds of things, so I went back to my OB/GYN and asked to please have the test for cystic fibrosis done because they were concerned that my son may have it and wanted to see if I was a carrier.  That was when everything changed.  The nurse that filled out the paperwork for the blood test requested the normal testing for my pregnancy which included the AFP test.  I had no clue since the paperwork was faxed over to the lab.  The wait was the worst part.

The dreaded day came when my OB/GYN called my house, I was so nervous.  I kind of knew something was wrong when the doctor himself called me after hours.  He proceeded to tell me that my cystic fibrosis test came back negative, however, it was discovered in my blood work that I have a 1 in 101 chance of having a child with down syndrome.  I was in disbelief, why me, what went wrong, no you have the wrong results is all I kept thinking.  The doctor told me that tests can be wrong and therefore wanted to send me for a level II ultrasound just to be sure.  He told me that his office would help with scheduling the appointment.