Too much information

To celebrate getting through the first trimester, my internet decided to throw intermittent tantrums and go on strike altogther for awhile. No matter, I remain almost completely unable to stay up beyond 9.30 pm in the evening which leaves time for approximately nothing beyond maybe reading a few pages of my latest book.*

I posted, um, elsewhere, about my dilemma regarding whether to get two rounds of nuchal translucency testing-one available for "free" on the NHS and one privately. Since it may help someone in the same confused state, I'm going to post here as to what we went with in the end.

Just to summarise- I really like the doctor who did the early private scan and had some reservations about doing the test on the NHS, since it has only been offered since January in this area. My last experience with the sonographers was that they were a little on the...abrupt side, shall we say. So I was keen to have the nice doctor do it, albeit niceness and skill comes with a price tag. However, she warned against doing two tests, on the basis that this could give conflicting results. But since my NHS scan date was before the private test date, I began to swither about actually turning down the option to get an opinion, especially on the NT measurement when we were right there having a look anyway.

I asked around and I asked the internets. Some folk thought that two tests could do no harm, really, or even be better, since surely more data is preferable, right? Especially if the results turned out to be basically the same. Well, the view I came to in the end is probably no. Google yielded two examples of women who had ended up with a private scan result and an NHS result that were wildly different. Interestingly, in both cases, the private results were good and the NHS ones terrible, although I'm not sure that is a reliable benchmark of anything.

What did happen- in both cases- is that despite having excellent private results, both women felt compelled to then go get an amnio. After some further pondering, I can see why. Sure, you may get a great result but then a long shadow of doubt could be  cast and how do you ever completely remove that from your mind? It strikes me as the perfect formulation for headfuckery- and there's plenty of opportunity for that elsewhere in pregnancy without paying over £200 for the privilege and still ending up on the pointy end of a an amnio needle.

So, I was resolved going forward to forego the NHS testing altogether, but we could still have the scan for further dating purposes since why not take a look and see how Caveat was doing in there as long as it was on offer? Then, prior to the scan I had what they call a "booking-in" appointment with my midwife. This appointment is basically to get details into the system such as height, weight (arggggh! It was the clothes, I swear, heavy clothes!), information about previous pregnancy and birth, general health, allergies, family medical histories, favourite colour, preference for the window seat or aisle...etc.

The midwife quizzed me about my NT scan preferences and I explained going private yaddayadda, then she quizzed me some more about why. I thought at first she was going to be me a hard time but in the end quite the opposite. She knows the doctor and likes her too and ultimately, it's my choice so fine and dandy. She did, however, suggest that maybe while we could skip the blood test, we could just get a NT measurement on the NHS scan date and then we could file that away for future reference at the private scan if we wanted. And despite my prior self assurance that no, no, no, no peeking allowed, I said, sure, why not, since this is pretty much what I had been hoping they would say all along.

Then we went along to the scan yesterday and the sonographer (who was as no-nonsense as I remembered from the last time) flat out refused to do any such thing. "All or nothing," she said. I hadn't ticked the right boxes on the consent form, and the midwife was wrong to have said that- and just no. So I lay there with the baby doing somersaults before settling down to what looked like the perfect position for taking a measurement, feeling completely belittled and kind of stupid. That said, the capacity for NHS staff to reduce me to this sort of state is one of the reasons I wanted a private test in the first place.

The scan was otherwise good-now measuring 13 weeks which is several days ahead of where I thought we were but obviously Caveat is keen (and something of a show-off, too. After performing some flips and rolls, s/he gave us a big wave and put its feet up for a little rest.)  And we came away with some good quality scan photos, one of which clearly shows what looks to my admittedly untrained eye as a relatively slim nuchal fold and some nasal bones. So that at least was encouraging. On to the private scan early next week- and hopefully a risk ratio to mull (obsess?) over by Friday next week.

*Florence and Giles by John Harding, thus far a deliciously Gothic delight.

Comments

[It Is What It Is]

It's just good to know that things are progressing well regardless of any frustration caused by dueling NT scans.

Keep us posted.

[Lucia]

Glad to see that all looked well and the baby was nice and active.
I'm currently 36.5 weeks with my 2nd, and at age 37 I had the NHS nuchal which with a slightly elevated NT result gave me a 'high' risk of 1 in 110 of D's Syndrome. We then went for a private scan and with 3 further markers looked at, the figure reduced to 1 in 2373 (I think from memory, certainly 2000 and something). But we didn't have an amnio. Please don't hesitate to ask any more details if you feel like it. The end of the story will become clearer in a few weeks I guess!

What a shame you had an abrupt and daft sonographer. I've not had that experience even with NHS but I can well imagine it. Good luck for the private scan. x

[Kristin]

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[T]

I'm a bit late, but my GP down in Wiltshire warned me that ultrasound training can vary wildly between technicians, and suggested that the NT training of NHS staff was not always as one would wish (except that he put it rather more rudely). So I went off and got a private scan at the John Radcliffe from a consultant who'd been doing them for over ten years, and he spent forty minutes making sure that he got it right.

In other words, I think you made the right call there.