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
The radiologist's skin shone with perspiration in the blue light of the ultrasound monitor. He moved the sensor over my rounded belly and stared at the image on the screen, at a glare or spot of light that looked, to me, like a star on the baby's heart. Even I knew it wasn't supposed to be there.
"The results from your blood test screening — all normal?" he asked.
"We didn't have the blood screening," I said.
He looked at me in disbelief. "You didn't have the test?"
When I was pregnant with our first child, John and I talked with my obstetrician about our options for genetic testing and screening. For a woman of thirty-two, like me, the risks of amniocentesis outweighed the chances it would detect a problem. I had conceived after a year of infertility treatments; I didn't want another needle. And John and I had always felt that abortion wouldn't be a consideration for us, anyway.
The other test, the one the radiologist asked about, was a simple blood test. It was not risky or invasive, but still just a screening test — it only provided a bit of statistical information about the likelihood of certain genetic abnormalities. The margin of error was high — it might miss a genetic defect completely, or provide a false positive for one that didn't exist. John and I didn't want inaccurate information to increase our anxiety or leave us feeling pressured to have an amniocentesis, and with my doctor's support, we opted out of both tests. Our son Brennan was born healthy and strong. With this second pregnancy, I was thirty-three, still in a low-risk category for genetic abnormalities. We made the same decision.
The radiologist stared intently at the monitor. He rolled me onto my side and clicked tiny arrows on the screen, trying to get a particular measurement.
The radiologist looked at me, startled, as though he'd forgotten I was there.
John and I had made the mistake of bringing one-year-old Brennan with us to the ultrasound. We'd expected the appointment and my follow-up with the obstetrician to be routine. We would learn the baby's sex, and then have lunch and celebrate before John went back to work for the afternoon. By this point in the exam, Brennan was shouting emphatic protests and attempting to swing from the thin blue curtain that divided the room.
"Take him out," I whispered to John.
"No way," John said softly, holding my eyes with his before he looked again at the hazy image on the screen.
The radiologist said he wanted to have another doctor take a look. He stepped out and returned with a woman who squirted more warm gel on my abdomen and swept the sensor over me. They scrunched their faces close to the screen, maneuvered and pressed my belly, and talked about me as though I weren't in the room. Fingers clicked a keyboard. "I got the same thing you got," the woman said cryptically. "Did she have the blood serum screening?"
"She didn't have it," he said.
"She didn't have it?" she asked, her tone sharp. A minute later, she left.
I cleared my throat. "Just what is it we're looking at?"
The radiologist looked at me, startled, as though he'd forgotten I was there. He offered a rapid-fire description of the flash of light on the screen and its implications. He told us that we were seeing an echogenic intracardiac focus, or EIF. It is a marker for Down syndrome, he said, though a notably unreliable one. He and the second radiologist had been struggling to get an accurate measurement of the baby's nose, which, if short, would be another marker. That measurement, though, appeared normal.
©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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