Gametes In Love

… to quote the memorable Adam Sandler.

I received a note from the clinic that will be performing my NT scan tomorrow. It was a very pleasant, informative letter on the genetic testing that will be performed, how and when it will all be done, etc. All is well and good, until I read this line: “this screen provides individualized information about your baby’s risk of Down syndrome by combining your age, results ….” Wait a minute!!!

My age??? My age when? Now, or when this baby was conceived?

So I called the number at the bottom of the letter, which encouraged me to call should I have any questions. My conversation went something like this:

Me: Yes, I was calling to ask for more information on the genetic screening. You indicated that maternal age is a risk factor. Is that current maternal age, or the maternal age when the child was conceived? Because my child was conceived 2.5 years ago!

Her: Uhmn…. let me have you talk to one of our nurses.

Yeah, I’m sure there was some head scratching going on. Ensue conversation on fertility treatments, and being transferred over to a nurse.

Here’s the part that got me. The nurse asked “Well, did you tell us that you had a donor egg?”

Me: No. We didn’t use a donor. It was my egg.

Nurse: Well, the donor question also applies to embryos used in frozen cycles too.

REALLY? Well then frikkin’ say so, because when the phlebotomist took my blood and asked me about using a donor she was oblivious to other applications of that question. As was I — the scope of the question is pretty darn narrow. I responded “No.” (since it WAS my egg & S’ soldiers), but that we did go through IVF. No further questions were asked. No “Did you use previously frozen eggs, sperm or embryos?” Nothing.

So tomorrow when we get our preliminary results we’ll need them to re-run the calculation with my adjusted age. Also that they’ll need to inform the state of the change.

Fun stuff!

I’m looking forward to the scan though. Wish us (and most importantly the wee one) a healthy bill o’health.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Baking Baby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.