Another Fork Stuck in the Road

Back home now after spending the morning at Children's Hospital getting Little A a sweat test to check for cystic fibrosis. The procedure went fine. No needles or strapping her down to get what they needed. So long as I held her in my lap, Little A was quiet and cooperative. She even held her arms out for the lab lady to attach the electrodes and sweat-collection device thingies, which astounded everyone. And now she is at her baby sitter's house taking a nap, no doubt dreaming of cupcakes and tricycles.

Meanwhile I'm sitting at work all a jitter and distracted. On one hand, I know that according to the powers that be, Little A has a relatively low chance of having CF. Both parents need to have a bum gene for a kid to develop the disease. And even when both parents have the mutation, you still have a 75 percent shot at not having a child with CF.

But the problem is twofold. First, we know I am a CF carrier and DH's status is up in the air. Back when I was pregnant the first time, I found out my carrier status and DH got tested. He screened negative, and we were told we had "zero chance" of having kids with CF. But now that zero has turned iffy. The pulminologist claims that the blood test DH took only checks for the 30 most-common CF gene mutations. There are about 1000 rarer mutations DH might still have. So, to clear up ambiguities, we opted to do the sweat test on Little A.

Second, I can't help but think about how my chance of making a baby with trisomy 18 was over 1 in 300. The chance of getting my uterus perforated in the D&E and having the anesthesia fail was even lower than 1 in 300. And the risk of uterine rupture outside of labor in Little A's pregnancy was way less than 1 percent. In light of all that has happened in the past few years, risk statistics are cold comfort.

So ... 25 percent. Possible big fork in the road directly ahead. More news soon.