98.67%

Week 17 marked another appointment for us. We had mixed feelings about it. The Doctor told us that judging by Toni's blood test from last week, the risk of us having a baby with Down Syndrome is a little higher than normal. A normal risk level for a 36 year old woman is about 1 out of 200. Meaning that 1 out of every 200 births will be a baby with Down Syndrome. Our risk is 1 out of 75. Initially hearing this news was a little disturbing. Then we did the math. Rather than focusing on the negative sounding numbers we were given, we looked at the positive. So in normal cases, the baby is absolutely healthy 99.5% of the time. In our case, we have a 98.67% chance of having a healthy baby. Still pretty good odds..

We won't be seeing the doctor again until March 19th but in the meantime, they are scheduling an appointment with a "Genetic Sonogram" Doctor. This Doctor is supposedly more adept at spotting visual problems associated with Down Syndrome. Hopefully they won't find any problems. They will also give us the option for having amniocentesis at that appointment. Toni and I are still feeling the same about it - we're not going to do it. With a 98.67% chance of the baby being healthy, the only thing that might change our mind is if something major shows up with the sonogram. At this point though, we wouldn't terminate the pregnancy anyway so there's really not much point.

Which brings us back to the sonogram.. We are both very excited about that appointment. We both hope nothing is wrong with Peanut and we can't wait to find out if it's a "he" or "she". Hopefully we'll be able to find out soon. I'll keep everyone posted as we learn more and as soon as we find out when the appointment is.

This week we also heard Peanut's heartbeat again. Everything sounded good and in was chugging along at around 140 BPM's!

Check out what's happening in week 17!
http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week17.asp