17weeks

I'm a little worried now... though it might be over nothing.

You see, my OB doc has been asking me and my husband about genetic counseling. We are going to go to a hospital in Pittsburgh to meet with a genetic counselor. Well, I had an appointment this past Monday, and the nurse practitioner asked me if the lady from Pittsburgh had contacted me yet. I said "Yes, I got a message from her before the weekend... I'm waiting on my new work schedule to come out, and then I'm going to give her a call." The NP said for me to call her at the office and let her know exactly when my husband and I are going to go.

Anyway, I got my new schedule Tuesday night, then had to work again Wednesday night. I slept most of the day Wednesday--seems I need all the sleep I can get lately. I talked with my husband a little yesterday, and he goes, "I don't think we need to do that." I told him, "Well, I think I'm going to call that lady in Pittsburgh and set up something for early Monday or something, if she can get us in."

Well.

How I said I worked Wednesday night... I slept from about noon to 4:30pm Thursday afternoon. I called my mom and we talked for over an hour.... I didn't check the answering machine until after that, and noticed it was blinking. When I checked the messages, there was one from my OB doctor's office. It sounded like the secretary's voice. So now I don't know what to think. I don't know whether it's nothing major and they're just calling to check on whether I made a genetic counseling appointment, or whether they're calling me back to tell me about my MSAFP result. I really hope it's not the MSAFP, you know? I'm SO hoping it's negative. I've already braced myself for the fact that it may be positive, just because it happens to so many people.... so I'm not going to worry TOO much. I've made my mind up though... if the result IS positive, I'll go the conservative route and go have that in-depth ultrasound in Pittsburgh to check things out further... but I AM NOT having an amniocentesis. Like I said before, if something's wrong, it's wrong, and no amniocentesis (which could put me at slight risk for miscarriage, no less) is going to change that. I don't want someone sticking a needle in there and something bad happening because of it.

I've just heard so many stories from people who had positive MSAFP's and then had amniocentesis' that STILL said there was something wrong... and the babies came out FINE! A guy I went to high school with had a child who was 'supposed' to be a Down's baby according to the amnio and all that, and the baby is perfect. One of my coworkers was told she should terminate her pregnancy (this was years ago)because her son was going to be born with severe birth defects... and he was born perfectly fine. I'm not going to put myself through undue stress over what might be nothing. If something's wrong, we'll deal with it. Abortion is NEVER an option for us, and I'm not going to rely on some test that might be wrong in the end.

I just hope that this MSAFP result comes back negative. I'm beginning to think I should have gone with my first thought and not had it done at all.