One of my favorite Mommy bloggers, Cassie , wrote a great post on prenatal diagnosis. She went through a prenatal diagnosis with her daughter Audriana and came across an article in the NY times on prenatal diagnosis which I just had to steal!
As most of you know, Ryan and I went through our own prenatal diagnosis with Ben and I stand by my decision 100 percent. I really don’t understand the whole “wait and see” type of thinking when faced with the risks of your child having CF but I understand that it’s not for everyone and people make decisions that they feel are best for them. But that wasn’t us. I am an advocate for prenatal testing and will again with possible future pregnancies.
Just because you go through a prenatal diagnosis does not mean that abortion is an option. It certainly wasn’t for Ryan and I. We both knew, no matter the outcome, that we were going to keep our baby. It wasn’t even something we discussed, we both just knew.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our Genetic Counselor was phenomenal. In fact, we still keep in touch with her and are excited to see her join Ben’s Brigade for the second year in a row. However, since she did not have a child with CF nor one with special needs we were presented with facts. She was not able to say things like, children with special needs seem overwhelming at first but are a HUGE blessing in disguise. Let me tell you, the facts about CF are pretty grim especially when you deal with hormonal/pregnancy changes at the same time.
But Ben’s prenatal diagnosis gave Ryan and I time to grieve, time to do our research on CF and most importantly, time to prepare. We meet with our CF team when I was 7 months pregnant and were blown away by them. We decided to collect and store Ben’s cord blood in case there were medical advances and it would come in handy. I had a c-section because he was already showing signs of Meconium Ileus (an intestinal blockage) and labor could have made it worse. I was semi-emotionally prepared for a NICU stay (I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared for that though). But most importantly, it helped us be ready for what was to come.
This article debates the fact that parents may not get a broad range of information concerning prenatal diagnosis. It’s interesting to read. You can find the article HERE .
One of my favorite Mommy bloggers, Cassie , wrote a great post on prenatal diagnosis. She went through a prenatal diagnosis with her daughter Audriana and came across an article in the NY times on prenatal diagnosis which I just had to steal!
As most of you know, Ryan and I went through our own prenatal diagnosis with Ben and I stand by my decision 100 percent. I really don’t understand the whole “wait and see” type of thinking when faced with the risks of your child having CF but I understand that it’s not for everyone and people make decisions that they feel are best for them. But that wasn’t us. I am an advocate for prenatal testing and will again with possible future pregnancies.
Just because you go through a prenatal diagnosis does not mean that abortion is an option. It certainly wasn’t for Ryan and I. We both knew, no matter the outcome, that we were going to keep our baby. It wasn’t even something we discussed, we both just knew.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our Genetic Counselor was phenomenal. In fact, we still keep in touch with her and are excited to see her join Ben’s Brigade for the second year in a row. However, since she did not have a child with CF nor one with special needs we were presented with facts. She was not able to say things like, children with special needs seem overwhelming at first but are a HUGE blessing in disguise. Let me tell you, the facts about CF are pretty grim especially when you deal with hormonal/pregnancy changes at the same time.
But Ben’s prenatal diagnosis gave Ryan and I time to grieve, time to do our research on CF and most importantly, time to prepare. We meet with our CF team when I was 7 months pregnant and were blown away by them. We decided to collect and store Ben’s cord blood in case there were medical advances and it would come in handy. I had a c-section because he was already showing signs of Meconium Ileus (an intestinal blockage) and labor could have made it worse. I was semi-emotionally prepared for a NICU stay (I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared for that though). But most importantly, it helped us be ready for what was to come.
This article debates the fact that parents may not get a broad range of information concerning prenatal diagnosis. It’s interesting to read. You can find the article HERE .