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Sometimes those tests are WRONG!! You know what else? Sometimes I suspect sometimes they lie and tell the woman she has a Down’s baby just so she’ll abort.

Yes, those tests can be wrong. However, babies with Down Syndrome have a higher risk of congenital heart defects and other issues that can cause death shortly after birth. So knowing that a baby has Down Syndrome can prepare the delivery team to deal with those issues and take the child to NICU and deal with those issues more quickly than they might otherwise be prepared for.

It is not the test in and of its self that is the problem, it is how it is used or what sort of pressures are put on the mother to abort rather than for her and the medical team to prepare for any problems.

I know I’ve posted about this before so I will post the “sort of” condensed version.

About 4 months after my niece and her husband had their first child, a beautiful baby girl delivered by an emergency C-section after many hours of hard labor and then the baby’s heart rate going way down and mom’s BP going through the roof (preeclampsia) and I know because I was in the delivery room with them, they found out they were pregnant again.

After the first sonogram, not one, not two, but three distinct heartbeats were found. Needless to say my niece and her husband were shocked.

As my niece told me when she and her husband told me the news, not only were they using a “prevent – defense” and besides, she was still nursing, so they never expected they would get pregnant again so soon and live alone with multiples as those do not run in either of their families.

They had moved after the birth of their first daughter and now had a new OBY who told them they should have a “selective reduction” i.e. abort at least one if not two of the babies. He told my nice that her uterus was not strong enough to carry triplets or even twins, that she would probably die from a hemorrhage or from a stroke from preeclampsia if she even tried.

So what did they do? They found another OBY, a specialist in high risk pregnancies. FWIW, while that wasn’t the reason they found him or went with him, he was the same OBY who delivered the Kate+8 sextuplets. He was frank that there were risks but with very close monitoring of her BP and of the babies’ development, weekly hormonal shots that would hopefully prevent premature labor and a near military precision at the delivery – each baby had their own team of NICU nurses, he assured them that everything would be fine.

Very early on, one the sonograms suggested that two of the babies, the twins who shared a birth sack, might be conjoined. But fortunately that wasn’t the case, but if it would have, that would have greatly complicated the delivery and the medical team would have needed to be prepared for that. Then a later sonogram detected what appeared to be a heart valve issue with the other triplet, the smallest, little Helen.

My niece was hospitalized at Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s high risk OBY ward eight weeks before the scheduled C-section at 32 weeks, as getting her and the babies to 32 weeks was the goal. It was hard on her and her husband and their daughter, I and other family members and friends pretty much lived with the dad and little Mel, those last eight weeks, taking care of my great niece Melanie so her dad could go to work and visit his wife after work.

Easter Sunday, the day before the scheduled C-section she went into labor, but thankfully the team at Penn State Hershey Medical Center was prepared and on the ball and she gave birth to three beautiful babies.

But it wasn’t easy. The “twins” spent 6 and 7 weeks in the NICU respectively and for a while with little Helen it was touch and go with her heart valve defect, that fortunately didn’t require surgery but was treated with medication that allowed it to resolve and heal and she came home after 8 weeks in the NICU.

Again, it isn’t the testing and prenatal diagnosis that is the problem, it is rather how it is used, and how strongly the mother and father are willing to go to give birth and demand if necessary that all is done for their child or children.

And I should also add that little Helen, the smallest and at birth, sickliest of the triplets, the one her first OBY suggested should be aborted, is today, like her twin sisters, is healthy and thriving and in fact has turned out at now 9 years old to be the family star athlete. She got interested in running and last year completed a 5k run alongside her dad. ; )