A Mommy Blog About Raising Men, Not Boys.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Advanced Maternal Age Is A Valid Diagnosis

This is the mantra at the perinatologist, apparently. If we heard it once, we heard it 20 times during our visit for luchal translucency (down syndrome) screening. This is the drum they beat to make insurance companies pay for the myriad tests they're going to put us through.
Sarah and I sort of have a philosophy about being high risk, it goes like this. "SWEET! MORE PICTURES"! I realize that sounds a little snarky, but - in my case anyway - it's like being high risk without being high risk at all.
What is boils down to, is that they have diagnosed me as being OLD.

Seriously. Are you fecking kidding me?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the red carpet treatment. I love knowing that my odds of having a Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18 baby are LOW LOW LOW after the testing was done, we have none of the genetic markers. Next we'll do neural tube defect testing so you know - MORE PICTURES! Plus I get to see the sex by then so that'll be fun.

I'm just not worried.

I saw that tiny human on the screen, with it's arms and legs stretching and rubbing it's head....and I can see that it's fine. Maybe it's because I didn't even start having kids until I was 34 that this just doesn't seem like such a huge deal to me. I was always "an older mother".

But I refuse to treat being pregnant like a disability. It's a gift, it's my hearts desire. And I will not see it otherwise, regardless of the testing and screenings that are required.


Avalon Birke said...

*hugs* Gidge. That's one lucky baby in there :-)