Trisomy 18 confirmed in our pregnancy
I don’t know how I feel about writing about this. Suffice to say that this horrible condition was confirmed in our pregnancy. I won’t be talking about this again after this post, it’s been devastating to us. In the event you are being faced with this tragedy then you will be searching for as much information as you can just as we were after the AFP screening. I hope then that this may help you in some way.
The basics of Trisomy 18, as described to us in detail from the Geneticist, comes down to extra material on the 18th chromosome pair. Basically, everybody has 46 chromosome pairs in every cell. When we conceive a child, each parent gives 23 chromosomes to the fetus, making 46. These 46 chromosomes are paired together. So, there are 23 pairs of two chromosomes, half of each pair comes from the mother and half from the father. Sometimes, either on the egg from the woman or sperm from the male, there can be extra material on one of the pairs. For instance, if the woman’s egg happens to give 24 chromosomes then that is one to many. That can happen for a variety of reasons but the most likely reason is age of the woman. At least the age of the woman greatly affects the likelihood of having a chromosomal anomaly.
Turns out that if there is extra material on most of these pairs of chromosomes the end result is a miscarriage. According to the Doctors we saw, the body takes care of most of these events by having a miscarriage. Unfortunately, the fetus can survive when the extra material is on the 13th, 18th or 21st chromosome pair. As an aside, if there is extra material on the 21st pair then that is Down syndrome. When on the 18th or 13th pairs, the fetus can survive until birth. Half die just after birth. I think the percentage of 95% die either just after or shortly after birth was the number we were told.
One thing that I asked the Doctor over and over was, is there anything we did wrong. Pet dander, cleaning supplies, eating habits, anything. The answer was universally, from every doctor we asked, no. If you find your way here for the same reason please take that to heart, you did nothing wrong as parents, as people. This is just a random thing that happens.
Not much else to say really. We are recovering. Taking life one day at a time. As I said, this will be the last time I talk about this here. Just want to put it behind us as much as we can.
George, Being a DC resident I regularly follow your blog and was heartbroken to see your news about the child your expecting being diagnosed with Trisomy 18. We lost a baby boy to this condition ourselves after 11 days old in 2001. Please let me know if I can be of any personal support as a neighbor during this time.
Victoria Miller
http://www.trisomy18.org
I am so sorry to hear about this. I do a google alert for Trisomy 18, and this popped into my inbox. Almost two years ago, we discovered our baby had Trisomy 18. It was a truly horrible time for us, as she was very much wanted. My story is a long one, and if you want to check out my blog, you can. Please feel free to send me an email or visit http://www.trisomy18.org for more support.
Thank you Tamara. We’re doing the best we can do. I still honestly can’t believe it. Its just about putting the pieces back together now. This past weekend has been a hard one, hardest one i’ve ever had. I’ve seen the trisomy18.org website before when we were looking for some information on this, when it was just suspected and not confirmed. Will likely join it soon.
Hi Victoria. I didn’t know I had regular DC resident visitors to the blog, good to see you. Even though the circumstances are dark, it’s nice to see neighbors on here. Especially ones that share the Miller name. I’m sorry to hear about your loss. It’s just horrible. It really makes me question everything in life…I go from being really pissed off to really sad when I think about it.