Yay! U.B. goes to the "doctor"!

Yesterday was U.B.’s first real prenatal care appointment. Unfortunately, it was one of those “introductory” appointments with a nurse practitioner and not an actual doctor. This meant I handed over my enormous packet of info recorded by our visit to the O.B. in Seattle at 6-ish weeks pregnant, and, while she read it, she suggested Isaac and I go hang out in the pediatrics’ waiting room where Isaac could run amok and make fish lips at the enormous tank of tropical fish. I got to pee in a cup to see if the Group B strep infection I had at 6-ish weeks had gone away after the round of antibiotics I was prescribed; I got shot in the arm with a test to see if I have tuberculosis.

Upon my request, I am also less 3 vials of blood, some for the “quad screen”, which I had done when I was pregnant with Isaac, and some for a cystic fibrosis carrier screen, which I had not had previously done. For those not in the know, the quad screen detects blood serum levels of certain hormones and proteins. Comparing these levels with levels that would be expected for your baby’s gestational age can reveal that your baby is more likely (but not guaranteed) to have certain developmental or genetic disorders, meaning amniocentesis would be recommended to pinpoint what, if anything, is going on. The cystic fibrosis carrier screen looks at a piece of my DNA to see if I have a mutated gene that would cause cystic fibrosis – if I don’t, then there is virtually no way I can have a child with CF. The nurse practitioner suggested I have the CF screen at the same time as the quad screen.

I wrestled with whether or not to have the quad screen test done when I was pregnant with Isaac, but I did it and when the results all came back as negative as humanly possible I found myself immensely reassured. Like any expectant parent, I ache to learn almost anything I can about the little tyke cooking inside me (but draw the line at tests that are unnecessarily invasive). If my baby is doing super, I want to know that. But if there is something wrong with my baby, I also want to know that so we can start preparing our family for raising a special-needs child. Either way, these tests can help shed a little light on that.