Down Syndrome...to Test or Not to Test

Time flies. I know, it’s a cliché. But it’s true. It seems like just a couple of months ago I was bringing my baby girl home from the hospital and now she’s a bright, active, talkative 3-year-old. When a friend with a new baby asks a question about what her 3-month-old is doing, I have a hard time remembering what the Punkin did at that age. This should still be fresh in my memory! But, no, it was three years ago. A thousand days have passed and with them a thousand new stories have come and gone.

My child continues to grow and somehow along the way, I continue to grow older, too. I am now 36 and pregnant. How did this happen? Wait before you answer that…I know exactly how the pregnancy happened, it’s the 36 that I’m questioning.

The doctors have a term for being over 35 and pregnant. It’s called Advanced Maternal Age. Yeah… I guess it’s better than “knocked up old lady” or “antique stove with a bun in the oven” or…well, you get the idea. I’m above the average age for a preggo.

With Advanced Maternal Age come a whole slew of potential complications. But perhaps the one everyone thinks of when you’re over 35 is Down Syndrome. Of all the things I worried about when I was pregnant with the Punkin and any worries that I had started to consider with this pregnancy, Down Syndrome was not even on the list until the doctor mentioned that as a woman over 35 I was in the target group for screenings.

I like to think that I’m not a big worrier. I just worry about the wrong things, like whether or not I locked the door or left the oven on. And although I wasn’t overly worried about the possibility of Down Syndrome, I did elect to have the first trimester screening. I didn’t invest a lot of energy in worrying about it, but I rationalized that if we have the medical technology available to get an answer early on, it was one more thing I could cross off my list of possible worries. That would free up time to try and remember whether or not my curling iron is still on.

Part of the reason I elected to get the first trimester screening is because it’s non-invasive. Once upon a time, the only way you could get this information was through an amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. Both of these procedures involve sticking a needling through your abdomen into your uterus. No thank you. Not unless absolutely necessary.

But this screening is completely non-invasive from the baby’s point of view. The nurse drew some blood from me, but that was as invasive as it got. They also did an ultrasound to check nuchal translucency – or how thick the tissue is at the back of the fetus’ neck. Then they put the results together from these two tests and come up with a risk factor.

This is not the same as a diagnostic test. Only the aforementioned amniocentesis or CVS can tell you one way or another for certain whether your child has a chromosomal disorder or not. The results from the first trimester screen simply slide you up or down on the risk scale. A good result would mean I could move from a 1 in 200 chance (the average chance for a 36 year old) to, say, a 1 in 1,000 chance. A not-so-good result could move me to, for example, a 1 in 50 chance. While not entirely foolproof, it has a 90 to 95 percent accuracy rate. I’m comfortable with that.

So, when will we hear the results? The blood test won’t come back for about a week, so we won’t know the official answer until then. But the doctor said the ultrasound measurements looked perfectly normal. I’ll let you know when we hear back with the final results.

Yay, Kate, you go girl...Now please go home

One thing I told myself when I started this blog was that I wasn’t going to be a hater. It would be very easy to write about the things that bug me, but that serves no purpose. It just fuels negativity within myself and brings attention to things that I don’t like. If I don’t like something, why should I pique your interest in it?

Having said that, I’m now going to bend my own rules a bit. I’m going to talk about Kate Gosselin on Dancing with the Stars.

I am not a Kate Gosselin fan. Never have been. Don’t anticipate ever being one. We’ve watched bits and pieces of the now-defunct Jon and Kate Plus 8 and it wasn’t a program either my husband or myself enjoyed. Having a bunch of kids does not make you a parenting expert. It just means you have a bunch of kids. I’ve got enough chaos in my life, why do I want to watch someone else’s chaos? Plus – remember the title of my blog here – if I’m going to watch “reality” TV, I’d rather be watching Ghost Hunters…or Mythbusters… or Destination Truth.

Even though I don’t like her, I’m not a Kate-Hater. There are plenty of people in this world that I don’t like, but I hate very few of them. To actually hate someone means you are emotionally invested in him or her and, frankly, I don’t care enough about her to hate her.

I just want her off DWTS because she’s not entertaining. She can’t dance. She’s so awkward it almost hurts to watch her. And the rehearsal montage they show each week usually highlights her talking about how her life at home is so stressful that she can’t help but bring her emotional baggage with her. With so many clever and fun contestants, why are we still watching the sad sack attend her own personal pity party each week? We should just put Tony out of his misery and let them go home.

Now that I’ve vented about why I want her off DWTS, I’ll take a moment to defend her decision to join the cast this season. Many of her detractors say that she shouldn’t be on the show because she should be spending time with her kids. Give me a break. Talk about double standards. She’s not the only parent to appear on this show; she’s not even the only parent this season. Pamela Anderson and Chad Ocho Cinco both have kids and no one has criticized their decisions to participate in the show.

The only difference is that Kate Gosselin’s career is centered around the fact that she is a mom. For Anderson and Ocho Cinco, their careers are independent of their parenthood. That difference does not mean Kate has any more or less of a responsibility to her kids than any other parent on the show. So, while I do not want to continue watching her each week, I respect her decision to participate.

But each week, I hope, will be her last on the show.

Woot! We're #3!

All right, so there are worse lists to be at the top of...like being at the top of obesity rates or teen pregnancy rates. Here's one that's a little funny...unless of course, it's pollen season.

WORST PLACES TO HAVE ALLERGIES
1. Knoxville, Tennessee
2. Louisville, Kentucky
3. Chattanooga, Tennessee
4. Dayton, Ohio
5. Charlotte, North Carolina
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7. Greensboro, North Carolina
8. Jackson, Mississippi
9. St. Louis, Missouri
10. Wichita, Kansas

Fantastic Friday

So, what am I excited about this Friday? Several things.

1) Scrapbook club meets tonight. It's a chance to hang out with the girls and work on a scrapbook layout. If you've ever been interested in paper crafts, check out my buddy Ellen's blog Stamperiffic.

2) After scrapbook club, I'm going to go home and watch Who Do You Think You Are. If you haven't heard of it, each week of the series explores genealogy by exploring a celebrity's roots. When I saw the show's teasers during the Olympics, I wasn't sure about it. I'm not a big celebrity-follower, so did I really care about watching famous people find out who their ancestors were? But I am interested in genealogy and finding my own family history so I gave it a try. I haven't been disappointed.

The first two episodes dealt with Sarah Jessica Parker and Emmitt Smith. Watching these individuals discover their family history is like watching history come to life. It's a reminder that those who came before us were more than just names on a page, they were living, breathing people with joys and sorrows, heartaches and victories, and a story to tell. Just like us.

So if my pregnant self doesn't fall asleep on the couch at 9 p.m., I'll be watching this well-crafted show. And if I do fall asleep, the DVR is set, so I'll watch it tomorrow.

3) Last, but certainly not least, The Punkin is spending the night with Mammaw and Grammy tonight. So I get to sleep in tomorrow. Hallelujah. It's the little pleasure that matter the most.

Have a great weekend. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I'm planning to enjoy mine.

UPDATE: I was wrong...Who Do You Think You Are actually comes on at 8! I obviously have never watched it when it was actually on (the miracle of a DVR!). But I did manage to watch it Friday at 9 and stay awake. It was really, really good. I cried several times.

In the Family Way

It's been almost a month since I posted a blog. I've started several, but haven't actually finished one (as I'm sure you've been able to figure out.)

One reason is...a few days before my last post in February, I found out I was pregnant. What does that have to do with my serious lack of output? Well, with the exception of telling a few friends, we were waiting until after my first doctor's appointment to tell people. But when I'd try to write something for my blog, being pregnant just seemed to come to the front of my mind. Sigh...so it was hard to blog and keep a secret. haha. I'm sure many, many people have discovered that over the years.

This here is just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive and kicking. And will be posting again soon. Now that I'm not concerned about spilling the beans about my pregnancy, it'll be a little easier to write.

Canadian Grudge Puck

Canadians love hockey.

I don’t know that we Americans can truly understand how deeply hockey is ingrained into the Canadian psyche. Probably the closest we come is the religious events that we here in the South call football games. Yes, the Super Bowl is routinely one of the most-watched television events of the year, but for many of the viewers it’s as much of a social event as a sporting one.

Hockey is different. Hockey is in the Canadian blood. Little Canadian girls play hockey and little Canadian boys play hockey and then the two grow up and have babies that learn to skate at the same time they are learning to walk. The entire country expects both the men’s and women’s hockey teams to take gold in these Olympics.

So imagine the shock to the Canadians this past weekend when the American hockey team beat the Canadians 5-3. The game-winning goal came against an unguarded net. At first I thought the goalie had simply been pulled away from the net in a puck-control skirmish, but then it was explained to me that taking the goalie out of the game is a strategic measure used in times of desperation. A team replaces the goalie with a sixth skater in an effort to outman the other team's goalie. It gives the goalie-less team a better chance of scoring. But sometimes it backfires.

It backfired on Canada. Taking out the Canadian goalie gave an American a chance to make a haphazard shot, one that shouldn't have worked. But it did.

I believe Canadians collectively did a national face-palm at that moment.

The US went on to get one more goal just for good measure and at the final buzzer, the tally was US 5, Canada 3. It was eerily quiet in the hockey stadium. If you’ve never seen a full-house hockey stadium go quiet, I’ll tell you – it’s downright spooky.

I tell you all of this so you’ll understand a little more when I tell you about the Canadian/German hockey game. The initial games are over and now we are moving on to the serious stuff—the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals which will determine gold, silver and bronze medals. Because of our victory the other night, the US got an automatic spot in the quarterfinals. Canada, however, had an elimination game with Germany before they could get to the quarterfinals. The Canadians were mad. And the Germans were in their way.

I’m positive that this was the first and only time in the existence of these two nations that Germany feared Canada.

Canada beat Germany 8 – 2. It was 8 – 1 until the last few minutes when Germany happened to score a second goal. The Canucks had a grudge and they were taking it out on Germany.

If the unthinkable were to happen, and the US were to wind up beating Canada for a second time on their home turf and taking the gold (or knocking Canada out of gold contention) it could spell the end of peaceful diplomatic relations with our neighbors to the north. Political scientists 200 years from now would study the Great Hockey Disaster of 2010 and how it affected international alliances for decades afterwards.

So in the interest of world peace, or at least North America peace, let’s all root for Canadian hockey. Go Canada!

Gold Medal Mamas

More reason to love curling -- It's a family sport!

Quite literally, in the case of Canadian curler Kristie Moore who is 5 1/2 months pregnant. (There's a joke waiting to be made about how she needs to check into the products offered by the USA Curling sponsors, but I'm going to take the high road and not go there :-)

Can you imagine the story she'll have to tell her little one? "You were at the Olympics with Mama when we won the gold."

How many times can you say that has happened?

OK, so the article gives you the answer to that question... This is only the second known time an athlete has competed in the Olympics while in the family way. In 1920 Swedish figure skater Magda Julin won gold while three months pregnant.

So, best of luck ot Kristie, her teammates and her little curler-in-training. Maybe we'll be watching him or her curling in the 2030 Winter Olympic Games.