I was on the phone with my obgyn's office this morning to schedule my first check-up (yay!!), and the receptionist asked if I was going to have genetic testing... I didn't have an answer for her!
Did you guys do genetic testing? Why, or why not?
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Yes, we did as much genetic testing as was available to us without invasive procedures (and would have done invasive procedures if anything had been flagged in our results). We wanted to know what issues our child might face – if they had a serious enough defect that they wouldn’t survive long after birth or would be in massive amounts of pain after birth we wanted to be able to have the choice to terminate early in the pregnancy. Otherwise; I think it’s always smart to know what’s going on, so if your child has special needs, you can ensure you have whatever medical interventions your LO might need immediately on hand after they are born.
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First, congrats! I opted to do genetic testing because my mother lost a child in infancy due to a genetic condition. It was done via blood test, so my OB just drew an extra vial during one of my visits when they were drawing blood for another routine test.
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Congratulations!
Yes, we did genetic testing. If we had a special needs child we wanted to know so we could prepare.
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I think we did. I did all the tests the Dr. asked me...they were just all blood draws, so no big deal for me. Congrats again!
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Nope, we aren't doing any (at least no invasive ones, my doctor might be testing my blood). If something comes up at our 20 week ultrasound, we will deal with it then, but I didn't want extra stress in the meantime.
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I did because we are both Jewish and needed to check for Tay Sachs. I did it before I was even pregnant. Ty tested for other stuff too, cystic fibrosis etc, so I would have done it regardless.
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I actually just did it yesterday. They start with non-invasive procedures. They pricked my finger and did an ultrasound to check for a bone in the nose as well as measure the neck for Downs Syndrome. I don't think you need to opt for the more invasive ones if the preliminary tests are normal. Even if there was an issue, we would no opt to abort. However, we wanted the time to prepare if there was an issue. It also allows the doctors to be more prepared for complications at delivery.
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The blood test alone can test for like 99 disorders. I came back positive for just 1 (which is pretty common), then DH was tested for just that one disorder and was negative. Some disorders are extremely serious and some are manageable by diet, etc. I personally felt like it was worth the stress to know (and it WAS stressful when I came back positive).
I did a CVS test too because I was in a unique situation and I would definitely avoid it in the future. It's very invasive and not worth it unless there is a good reason to do it.
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We didn't do any of the optional scans. I fall in the lowest risk category for most common issues so we just threw it out to the universe.
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We did the first trimester screening. We wanted to have the option to terminate. We didn't do any of the later screenings though. But we had filled out a genetic screening questionnaire and we weren't at risk for much, and the first trimester screening covered things we were at risk for.
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Nope. We just waited to see if anything came up at the 20 week ultrasound. It wouldn't have changed our minds to continue the pregnancy.
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we did the NT scan and the blood work. I was ok with anything non-invasive
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We did the NT and blood work, but opted out of the genetic testing for CF even though I at risk to be a carrier (I have a family member with CF).
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We didn't do any testing except for the cystic fibrosis and that was for any future children. We were continuing the pregnancy no matter what so we waited for the 20 week ultrasound.
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I only did the blood work. I turned down the quad screen and NT and everything else.
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We did some optional blood genetic screenings, I don't remember what they were for though. But we won't ever have to do those again with future pregnancies. Then we did the NT scan.
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Just wondering, but was this covered by most of your insurance? Obviously I know I need to call mine to confirm... I just dread phone calls to insurance!
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@sweetchic: Yep. It should be covered, since it's routine testing.
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18 comments