3 days after we had our most recent ultrasound - you know, the one that revealed my husband is doomed to a future of PMS to the infinite power? - I received a voicemail from my OB's office.
"It's about the ultrasound. It's not urgent, but please call us back."
Ha. "It's not urgent." Who doesn't freak out when the doctor calls you at a point in your pregnancy that you've never received a call before? Yeah. Right. So I called back. The nurse informed me that they had found choroid plexus cysts on our wee one's brain. I was driving at the time (illegal, I know... but whatevs) and so I couldn't write anything down. I had the nurse spell the term out for me and I filed it into my brain. She also informed me that I needed to make an appointment with a genetic counselor who would also set us up with a high resolution ultrasound. I asked if these cysts were truly a concern. I mean, cysts can be anything from a basic pimple to cancer, so....
She said she wasn't authorized to say too much, but that I should be relieved to know that they can commonly mean absolutely nothing, or that they could also mean a chromosomal abnormality.
"Like Downs?" I asked.
"Sort of."
Again, because I was driving, I asked her to call my phone again and leave me a voicemail with the Genetic Counseling Center's information.
I got home and called the Center immediately and made an appointment for that Thursday (this was on a Tuesday). And then I went to work on Google. You know how when you get on Google and start investigating medical stuff and the next thing you know, you're pretty much convinced you're doomed to die or, at the very least, become a vegetable or a paraplegic or some sort of catastrophic burden on your family? Well, I was very fortunate this time, because the exact opposite happened. The more I read about choroid plexus cysts, or CPCs, the more at ease my anxiety became. When the nurse had initially delivered the news, I was surprised then at how at peace I felt, and stumbling across tidbits of more detailed info. helped now. Things like the fact that "at least one out of one hundred parents will share this frightening experience during a routine ultrasound" and "between 1 and 3 percent of all fetuses will manifest a CPC at 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy" and "choroid plexus cysts are not harmful to the baby" and "the experts agree that the vast majority of these babies are perfectly healthy, and their CPC is just a normal part of growth and development" and that these cysts often disappear by 32 weeks.
The scary part? "CPCs have become associated with a severe genetic disease called Trisomy 18."
UPDATE: For the majority of the time, we thought this was all about a risk for Downs Syndrome. I have since discovered it's actually associated with something called "Edwards Syndrome" which tends to involve more medical problems along with mental retardation, and also has a higher fatality rate.
The next day, I received a call from the Genetic Counseling Center informing me that, due to our health insurance being a PPO, we would be expected to cover the entire cost of the session and ultrasound. The cost? I'm not telling you - but I threw up mentally a little when they told me. Long story short - after 8 hours of calling them back and forth, calling my doctor's office back and forth, calling David back and forth - we decided to opt out of the session. They were most likely going to encourage us to have an amniocentesis anyway, which has a risk of causing the miscarriage of 1 out of 250 otherwise healthy babies. NO. THANKS!
And even if we were to have an amnio. which could have garnered possible unfortunate news, terminating our sweetheart wasn't even an option we'd discuss.
I called my doctor's office and left a message saying I would take no further steps with the genetic counseling unless he felt it was totally necessary. I informed the nurse that I had no intent to terminate, and so time was not an issue. I also asked that HE call me, and no one else, if he felt certain measures were necessary or if there was really any concern.
He didn't call back for two weeks. But I've been really blessed in not feeling too concerned. The fact that the ultrasound pictures we have (albeit not the best quality) show a fairly proportional little girl with beautiful toes and an adorably stubby nose, aligned with the daily kickboxes to my fragile bladder, gives me an overwhelming feeling of reassurance.
When he did call back, I was comforting a croupy toddler and unable to answer. But the voicemail was very reassuring and he told me that he knew I had no intent to terminate and that we would just monitor her growth and take another look at the cysts at the next ultrasound and that CPCs can, more often than not, be absolutely nothing to worry about.
And even if they ARE something?
"It's about the ultrasound. It's not urgent, but please call us back."
Ha. "It's not urgent." Who doesn't freak out when the doctor calls you at a point in your pregnancy that you've never received a call before? Yeah. Right. So I called back. The nurse informed me that they had found choroid plexus cysts on our wee one's brain. I was driving at the time (illegal, I know... but whatevs) and so I couldn't write anything down. I had the nurse spell the term out for me and I filed it into my brain. She also informed me that I needed to make an appointment with a genetic counselor who would also set us up with a high resolution ultrasound. I asked if these cysts were truly a concern. I mean, cysts can be anything from a basic pimple to cancer, so....
She said she wasn't authorized to say too much, but that I should be relieved to know that they can commonly mean absolutely nothing, or that they could also mean a chromosomal abnormality.
"Like Downs?" I asked.
"Sort of."
Again, because I was driving, I asked her to call my phone again and leave me a voicemail with the Genetic Counseling Center's information.
I got home and called the Center immediately and made an appointment for that Thursday (this was on a Tuesday). And then I went to work on Google. You know how when you get on Google and start investigating medical stuff and the next thing you know, you're pretty much convinced you're doomed to die or, at the very least, become a vegetable or a paraplegic or some sort of catastrophic burden on your family? Well, I was very fortunate this time, because the exact opposite happened. The more I read about choroid plexus cysts, or CPCs, the more at ease my anxiety became. When the nurse had initially delivered the news, I was surprised then at how at peace I felt, and stumbling across tidbits of more detailed info. helped now. Things like the fact that "at least one out of one hundred parents will share this frightening experience during a routine ultrasound" and "between 1 and 3 percent of all fetuses will manifest a CPC at 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy" and "choroid plexus cysts are not harmful to the baby" and "the experts agree that the vast majority of these babies are perfectly healthy, and their CPC is just a normal part of growth and development" and that these cysts often disappear by 32 weeks.
The scary part? "CPCs have become associated with a severe genetic disease called Trisomy 18."
UPDATE: For the majority of the time, we thought this was all about a risk for Downs Syndrome. I have since discovered it's actually associated with something called "Edwards Syndrome" which tends to involve more medical problems along with mental retardation, and also has a higher fatality rate.
The next day, I received a call from the Genetic Counseling Center informing me that, due to our health insurance being a PPO, we would be expected to cover the entire cost of the session and ultrasound. The cost? I'm not telling you - but I threw up mentally a little when they told me. Long story short - after 8 hours of calling them back and forth, calling my doctor's office back and forth, calling David back and forth - we decided to opt out of the session. They were most likely going to encourage us to have an amniocentesis anyway, which has a risk of causing the miscarriage of 1 out of 250 otherwise healthy babies. NO. THANKS!
And even if we were to have an amnio. which could have garnered possible unfortunate news, terminating our sweetheart wasn't even an option we'd discuss.
I called my doctor's office and left a message saying I would take no further steps with the genetic counseling unless he felt it was totally necessary. I informed the nurse that I had no intent to terminate, and so time was not an issue. I also asked that HE call me, and no one else, if he felt certain measures were necessary or if there was really any concern.
He didn't call back for two weeks. But I've been really blessed in not feeling too concerned. The fact that the ultrasound pictures we have (albeit not the best quality) show a fairly proportional little girl with beautiful toes and an adorably stubby nose, aligned with the daily kickboxes to my fragile bladder, gives me an overwhelming feeling of reassurance.
When he did call back, I was comforting a croupy toddler and unable to answer. But the voicemail was very reassuring and he told me that he knew I had no intent to terminate and that we would just monitor her growth and take another look at the cysts at the next ultrasound and that CPCs can, more often than not, be absolutely nothing to worry about.
And even if they ARE something?
She's still mine. And she'll still be perfect. Just like her sisters.
