Choosing (a) Life
They said our baby would have Down's. We said we understood. We had no idea.
by Karen Dempsey
October 13, 2008
"Is it a boy or a girl?" I asked him.
"Uh, girl, I think," he looked at his screen again. "Yeah, a girl. Ninety-percent sure." He finally met my eyes. "You're taking this very well," he said. "Most people get very upset by now." He handed me a one-page printout on which he had scrawled at the top, EIF, and then he left.
I asked John to take Brennan out, and I shakily pulled my clothes on, desperate to get away from there. I had felt the tears coming, and panic, but Brennan's presence in the room and, in some strange way, the radiologist's ineptitude at handling the situation, had helped me to remain calm. Now I just wanted to get across the street and talk to my own doctor.
John and I looked at each other wide-eyed when we got outside. "What an ass," I said. "Could he have handled that worse?"
"Let's just talk to Dr. Shapiro," John said.
Dr. Shapiro greeted us enthusiastically. My hand shook as I handed him the printout. He studied it and let out an exasperated breath. "What is this?" he pointed at the EIF scrawled across the top. "What's that supposed to tell you? 'My kid is an elf?'"
I laughed and my eyes filled with tears as I felt a release of the tension that seemed to have been pressing at me from the inside out.
Dr. Shapiro sat with us for a long time, asking and answering questions as we weighed whether to have an amniocentesis that would tell us for certain if the baby had Down syndrome. We talked again about the statistics: the risks associated with an amnio and the likelihood of Down's. The numbers felt simultaneously meaningless and terrifying. One in two hundred means nothing, or everything, depending on whether you are that one. But while I had walked out of that ultrasound appointment afraid, I felt more fiercely protective of my pregnancy than ever.
One in two hundred means nothing, or everything, depending on whether you are that one.
"No one's saying what we're talking about here," John said, finally, and I heard the stress in his voice.
"I'm saying it," Dr. Shapiro said. He leaned against a counter, completely at ease, with the demeanor of a friend. He looked at me. "If you had a diagnosis of Down syndrome would you continue the pregnancy?"
"Yes," I said without hesitation. John nodded, his eyes betraying the same certainty and fear I felt.
Dr. Shapiro nodded, and smiled. "Okay," he said. He went on to say that some people have an amniocentesis in our situation because they wouldn't want to continue the pregnancy. (Eighty to ninety percent of pregnant women abort when a diagnosis of Down syndrome is confirmed.) But others would have the test because they simply needed to know, to prepare themselves ahead of time rather than find out in the delivery room.
"Do you need to know?" I asked Dr. Shapiro. "Would a diagnosis of Down syndrome change my prenatal care?" He thought for a minute and then described what might be different. He might recommend more ultrasounds to check on the baby's development. He said with Down syndrome there's a higher likelihood that the baby would experience distress during delivery, so they would take that into consideration when planning, for example, whether to induce labor. He also told me that there's a higher likelihood, with Down syndrome, of miscarriage or stillbirth. But learning the diagnosis ahead of time wouldn't change that.
The baby probably didn't have Down syndrome, and if she did, the only reason for us to find out right now was if we needed to know. We didn't. We declined an amniocentesis and Dr. Shapiro scheduled a follow-up ultrasound. It didn't feel like an exceptional decision, or a particularly brave one. It just felt right for us.
©2008 Karen Dempsey and Babble
About the Author
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Karen Dempsey's essays have appeared in Brain, Child magazine and The Buffalo News. She is writing a memoir about parenting a child with chronic medical needs. Read more of her work at kdempsey.com.
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