I’ve written and deleted this god knows how many times in the last few days. I don’t know why I’m writing. I guess just to see my own thoughts in front of me.

Here goes attempt number 12.

Our son, born in March 2012 had a severe congenital heart defect. After a very long and scary 5 months, he had life saving surgery and has made a wonderful recovery; confirmed when he was most recently checked in March. Nothing to worry about there… now.

We’re expecting our second son in October and last week had the 20 week congenital anomaly scan. We had been worried about another heart defect so as the sonographer was going through her checklist saying, “this is normal”, “that’s normal” we were having a wonderful time. It was then we got the kick in the guts that I’ll never forget. The nucheal fold at the back of the neck, a hard marker for Down Syndrome, is very thick. I can’t bring myself to look at the statistics, but the chances of our boy having Downs is high. The other markers such as lack of a nasal bone, spacing of fingers and the ovalness of the head were all missing / they were ‘normal’.

They took a sample of the amniotic fluid to do a 100% accurate test, but I can’t help but feel like I’m preparing for the bad news. The test will take 3-4 weeks, but right now, I don’t know how I can last that long. I always stayed, perhaps naively, positive with our first boy and it got me through. This time though, I feel I’m all out of positiveness and am just preparing for the worst. I’m so frightened that there’ll be other health problems. I’ve had dreams every night where we’re burying our boy.

I know my wife and I can cope. I’m frightened for our son. Everyone wants their child’s life to be easy; make friends, do well at school, get a good job, find a partner etc. I do know that having Downs and that list absolutely aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s certainly not going to be easier for him.

I can’t bring myself to get any extra information about it all just yet. I want to wait to see if I need to when we find out for sure.

Has anyone else had a similar situation? Like I said, we haven’t been told our son has Downs, but we’re 4 days in to the longest, scariest and most difficult 4 weeks of our lives.

Mike

You’ll love your child, and your child will love you. Good luck bruv.

Understand why you are thinking like that, and of course the chance is there, one marker doesn’t specifically mean everything so try and remain positive. Fwiw ours was the same and there were no issues at all.

NZCol +1,we had this with our eldest,he turned out ok,it’s a long hellish 4 weeks,good luck to you all.

I can totally understand why you may be feeling as you do. We all want the best possible life for our children. We spent the majority of our second pregnancy worrying about the health of our boys – so I’ve been in a similar position to you. The only advice I can offer is to try and deal with issues as they occur rather than having a high-level of anxiety about what could be the outcome of as yet unconfirmed situations. You waste so my energy in anxiety otherwise. Easier said than done though…

What I can say is that you will deal with whatever situation you find yourselves in one way or another. Also whatever the outcome you will love your child.

Take care,

J

Right now, it’s absolutely fine to have all these feelings about it.
When he’s born, yu will love him regardless of any problems and the doubts and fears will fade away, I’m sure.

Mike,
It’s natural to worry. It may all turn out fine, but whatever happens, he’ll still be your boy and he will fill yours and other people’s lives with love and happiness.

I have the pleasure of being involved with some Downs/learning difficulties people and they are fantastic, fun and happy people. Their life is just a bit different to “normal”, but no less rewarding in it’s own way.

The fears and issues are in our own minds, not theirs.

Having kids is stressful full stop. Some will just be stressful in different ways.

Good luck and keep us informed, we’re all here to help.

Rich.

Thanks for the replies. They do help.

I keep thinking that, sbob. I know it’s true – everything else is insignificant.

I guess that by the time we get the call with the results, we’ll a) have had time to come to terms with it b) enjoy the massive relief.

Good News!

Thanks for the link JoeG.

Great news!