Five months later, I received a name from a doctor who was filling in for my physician; she canceled my appointment, claiming she was uncomfortable transferring a mosaic embryo. I was furious and overcome with grief.
“The larger question that emerges with embryo testing is who gets to take on the risk of possibly bringing a child with potential disabilities into the world,” Dr. Taylor stated. “The decision should not be left to physicians. Patients should be given the freedom to decide, and properly counseled in cases where there are abnormalities that will inevitably lead to death.”
Parents I had met on-line described wheeling or driving their frozen irregular and mosaic embryos in unwieldy metallic tanks to different clinics when their physicians refused to switch. Fortunately, my common physician got here again and scheduled a new appointment for the next month.
My husband and I received fortunate. Our lovely, imperfect embryo connected to the uterine wall, mesmerizing us together with her wild beating coronary heart at biweekly ultrasounds. As every week introduced on contemporary worries — that I might miscarry, that the child may need different abnormalities not caught at embryo testing — I discovered consolation in Dr. Taylor’s phrases: “Mosaicism is more common than we think. Many of us are mosaic without knowing it.”
At three months, my physician advisable a blood take a look at that checked the child’s DNA fragments in my blood to see if she was in danger for genetic abnormalities. At this level, my husband and I had begun to note households within the canine park whose kids had genetic disabilities. We quietly discovered acceptance that we might add selection to the households in our neighborhood and determined that we wouldn’t terminate the child — regardless of the outcome.
They got here again as regular. But like embryo testing, the blood take a look at couldn’t diagnose a fetus’s genetic situation with certainty. Our physician supplied a extra correct amniocentesis take a look at, however we had already made our choice. I determined to go away it there.
Now, throughout ultrasounds, our daughter hides her face behind her arms or presses laborious towards the placenta, as if asking us to let her develop in privateness. The final time I glimpsed her full profile, at 5 months gestation, her nostril, lengthy and sharp, was distinguished and unmistakable. I questioned if it was one of many traits of the additional 22nd chromosome or if she’d merely inherited my husband’s nostril. As my due date attracts nearer, her genetic profile is much less of a concern. I’m thrilled we’ve made it this far.
