I am having bloods taken today for an iGeneScreen and the Nuchal test, for which I’ll have a scan around 13 weeks.
This morning, I read something that says by my age, 90% of my eggs will have something wrong with them. Now that’s a pleasant thought for today.
I go have a chat to the chickens.
There are eggs, and then, there are eggs.
The morning before I visit my obstetrician, in my head, I run through a medical history since last time I saw him (nearly 8 years ago). It takes a while.
Bring on the tests.
It’s reassuring to visit my doc. We both agree the priority is chromosomal tests. (And I’m itching to get an all-clear, so I can tell my family about this baby — and stop sucking in my stomach!)
I visit the pathology center in the hospital to organize a non-invasive test: it’s called iGeneScreen, and it has to be done on a certain day so the blood can be couriered to the airport to the USA. It tests for Trisomy 21, Trisomy 18, and Trisomy 13. I could also find out the sex, which I decline. I’ll also have a Nuchal Translucency Scan, so I book that in for three weeks’ time.
I speak to my obstetrician. I haven’t seen him yet; apparently there’s not much point so early. Especially since I’ve done this all before ten years ago.
He tells me about screening options. There’s something new: non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). With ridiculous brand names like Harmony and Panorama. I tell him Harmony is now off my list of potential boy names.
They can take a blood test around 10 weeks, send it to the US, give you an early chromosomal heads-up. Earlier detection, reduced risk of miscarriage. 10 weeks sounds much better than 13 to this 43-and-a-half year old.
It costs, he tells me, around $800 – $1000.
The Chinese, he tells me, are working on a cheaper option.
If you’re interested in Queensland Health’s brief on NIPT from May 2013, click here. It’s a solid read.
I have no idea how far along I could be. Aware that, as an older woman, I need to address certain risks, I call my GP the morning I find out I’m knocked up, to give him the good news and ask for a referral to my lovely obstetrician. Now three of us know. It’s Saturday. It’s a weird Saturday. We go to a dinner full of hard-drinking dentists and I skull mineral water. I drive drunk people out to other bars.
First thing Monday morning, I make the calls. I’m worried now that I might be more pregnant than I think, and that I need to think about tests, etc. My doctor’s rooms suggest a dating scan, my GP refers me, and I find a clinic only 25 minutes away that can fit me in today. I drink water for that fetching ultrasound bloat.
The clinic is full of women at various life points: half-pregnant girls and older ladies courting mysterious later-life ailments. I am seen quickly, and the radiographer asks “Surprise?”
I haven’t practiced my witty responses yet; I’ll need to work on some.
I ask her how old the oldest woman she’d done this scan on was, hoping to hear “50” at least.
“44 or 45, I guess” she responds.
Shit. “Were they IVF?” I ask.
“Oh yes” she replies, “You’re quite the exception.”
She spreads her goo, waves her wand, and hey presto, there’s a little… something. With a flutter.
“Oh, that’s a good heartbeat,” she says.
Shit.
I remember something. Twins are more common in late-life pregnancies. Something to do with your body having a last tilt at reproduction, I guess. The radiographer concurs, telling me it’s true, often both ovaries will “fire at once” in the peri-menopausal. Guns blazing! Fortunately, this is not the case with my otherwise rampant ovaries.
I am 6 weeks and 3 days along (amazing how they can pinpoint this); she can tell me which ovary the egg came from! She shows me the “ring of fire” around a bit of the ovary. The smoking gun.
It’s time. The symptoms are getting clearer: my breasts ache. I am irrationally anxious. My last period was barely noticeable. My stomach is a little fluttery.
Of course, it could be the beginning of early menopause.
Or I could be pregnant at 43.
My boys are at a friend’s house, and I have to pick up a prescription for antibiotics for one of them, so I have to go the pharmacy anyway. And I need to know…
I walk in; it’s crowded. Drop off the script. Leave and take some things to the op-shop next door. Return and skulk the aisles, looking for the tests. I plan to locate them, and quietly grab one when they call that my script is ready.
And there he is: the father of my sons’ friend. A neighbour who lives in the next street. A little merry, dropping by to pick up something after a work lunch. He stops for a chat, my name is called, and he walks to the counter with me. Opportunity missed.
I drive to a pharmacy in the next suburb. In some strange kind of downplaying of buying the pregnancy test, I grab some head lice treatment, which we don’t actually need. May as well be embarrassed on two fronts. I also pick up some Betadine, perhaps to appear more responsible.
A customer is having a chat about her various health issues, and leaves the store throwing this gem over her shoulder, “Well I had to do something about it. I couldn’t be walking down the street scratching my bum all the time, could I?”
I don’t feel so embarrassed.
I have to collect the kids straight away, so the test sits in a paper packet in my handbag, waiting. Smouldering.
The next morning, I wake and I KNOW. I send the boys on an errand to the shop up the road. It’s lucky we’re out of milk.
I casually tell my partner, I think I might go pee on a stick. It’s the first he’s heard of my suspicions.
I sit on the toilet, so nervous it takes a little while to get any action. But when I finally make contact, the test is so bloody eager to tell me I’m knocked up, it starts colouring the “positive” section faster than a dividing zygote.
I walk out and hold the pee-soaked stick in front of my partner. He’s smiling, the bastard.