Chorionic villi sampling. It felt as barbaric as it sounds. My husband and I went to Brigham & Women's last Thursday morning, May 28 for an 8am appointment. We met with a genetic counselor first and she was great. She explained to us that if the fetus is female, we would not be able to test to see if she's a carrier since she is technically a minor and unable to make her own decisions. Very interesting! We had never thought of it that way before. Also, as Tony reminded me to think positively, if the results were for a boy, it could just as easily (50-50 chance) be a healthy boy and then we wouldn't have to worry about a daughter carrier as well.
After our appointment with the counselor, we went into the procedure room. The tech brought the fetus up on the ultrasound screen (which was really neat) but we told her we'd like to hold off hearing the heartbeat. We were very cautious to avoid actions that could emotionally attach us to the baby. We were scared it would be an infected boy and we would be forced to terminate the pregnancy.
The procedure didn't take long but it was certainly painful. It wasn't "uncomfortable" like reports I'd read. It was awful. I closed my eyes and held my husband's hand. Afterward, he said it was a good thing I didn't open my eyes because the needle was 6-7 inches long. They popped (it really made a pop noise) a thicker but shorter needle into my lower abdomen then inserted a thinner but much longer needle through the middle of the shorter needle. I could feel the doctor breaking up part of the placenta to retrieve the villi. Tony watched in person and on the ultrasound screen. He said the villi were bright pink. He also sounded very impressed by my pain tolerance and courage. It was all over in about 2-3 minutes.
The procedure didn't take long but it was certainly painful. It wasn't "uncomfortable" like reports I'd read. It was awful. I closed my eyes and held my husband's hand. Afterward, he said it was a good thing I didn't open my eyes because the needle was 6-7 inches long. They popped (it really made a pop noise) a thicker but shorter needle into my lower abdomen then inserted a thinner but much longer needle through the middle of the shorter needle. I could feel the doctor breaking up part of the placenta to retrieve the villi. Tony watched in person and on the ultrasound screen. He said the villi were bright pink. He also sounded very impressed by my pain tolerance and courage. It was all over in about 2-3 minutes.
The fetus at 11wks looks like a deformed lima bean. :) our lima bean
CVS info: http://www.mytestingoptions.com/testing/tests-by-name/chorionic-villi-sampling/mto_testing_tests-by-name_chorionic-villi-sampling.asp
