Screening Test - Pregnancy post 5 of 8

Coraline at Melbourne airport in January 2019, waiting for a delayed internal flight to Canberra.

At the end of June 2017 I wrote to Coraline in the pregnancy diary we kept for her:

“So we went for your 32-week scan today and you’re doing so well. We could see one of your eyes and part of your face and the midwife said you have 3cm of hair and she saw your eyelashes. Both kidneys are now great and you’re exactly average for growth at this stage. Wonderful. We’re really grateful and blessed!”

I wrote about the kidneys as the only thing which had come up earlier in scans was some fluid on one of Coraline’s kidneys.

Combined test

The screening tests we had earlier in my pregnancy hadn’t even really registered with us. We had the two-step screening which is offered to pregnant women - the combined nuchal scan and blood test, which has an 80% detection rate for Down’s Syndrome. If you have a 1 in 300 chance they offer you a further test to confirm whether your baby has Down’s syndrome. Our likelihood was over 1 in 300, I can’t remember what it was exactly. So it wasn’t something we thought about again, until Coraline was born.

New outfit from Nana, photo taken yesterday