Why an amnio?

My friend asked me a very good question the other day.  Why the amnio?  You see my husband and I are both pro-life and would not consider terminating a pregnancy regardless of the diagnosis.  In the past I would never have considered an amniocentesis because of the risk to the baby.  So why consider one when Joshua already had a risk of preterm labor.  The main reason was so we would have a more definite diagnosis and therefore a more specific prognosis.  In some cases the information gleaned can help a family decide how far they want to go with treatment if at all.   Based on his anomalies, there were several possible causes, the most likely were chromosomal in nature and therefore an amnio could help us know better what the diagnosis was.  Also, depending on the diagnosis, the prognosis would be a little different.  Now in Joshua’s case the prognosis really wouldn’t change much, in all cases -because of his anomalies,  his diagnosis was considered fatal but it would give us a better idea of how long we would have with him both before birth and after.  We knew that barring a miracle, Joshua’s condition would not ultimately improve and so we decided that if he lived through birth, we would only employ comfort measures so that he would not struggle or be uncomfortable while we spent as much time with him as humanly possible. Some side benefits were that we were able to find out that the risk of recurrence was very low to almost nonexistent should we decide to try again.  The most exciting finding was that he was definitely a boy and we were able to give him a name.  So would I do it again?  Not unless the circumstances warrant it.  Only so that we could give our child the best care possible.

Incidentally, I was very nervous about the amnio.  The pictures of the needle inserted into the abdomen in my pregnancy books did not look in anyway appealing.  Thankfully we did not have to wait to have it done or I might have chickened out.  I would not say it was painless but it was more of an “uncomfortable” feeling than specifically painful.  I was also a little nervous because we already had low amniotic fluid and I wondered if it would fill back up good enough but God took care of Joshua and me.  The night after the amnio they had said to lay low so we (Joshua and I) just sat around in the recliner drinking our required fluids.  I remember that I did have some mild discomfort that night, just sort of a dull ache -I described it to one of my friends as kind of like when you’ve exercised for the first time in a long time.  The spot where the needle was inserted left me with a blue dot after it healed.  I still have my little blue “Joshua dot” though it continues to fade over time.