A new face for the first time!!!

A new face for the first time!!!

After the Dec 1 confirmation check-up, we were asked to make an appointment with MediScan for an ultrasound scanning for NT screening.

Now, to touch base on a few facts, neither me nor my wife are doctors or have studied medicine in our school or college (Except for a few basic stuff in our 8-9 grades). When they told NT, I did not know head or tail of what it meant!!! Thank god, my wife had done some research beforehand (gods bless her) and gave me a small hint....

OMG!!!! That was the reaction once I came to know on the scan's purpose. Do we need to do the NT scan???

Of course, why? Here it comes - It's all about probability - I dint understand probability then, and I still don’t understand. I always tot probability is for gamblers. I am a software person. The program I write needs to run to its purpose, I cannot deal with probability in my field, like, I say to my customer, the program has 1 in 250 chances to fail and if that was the case, we need to start all over again!!!! 

Well, this is not software development; this is much much more complex than that. And the stakes are so high, even a veteran gamble playing with Rs. 100 would say 1 in 250 is really risky...

Well that is NT scan for you. For basics, NT is the clear space at the back of the fetus’s neck. And they measure this space using Ultrasound, now that’s real complex. This thickness needs to be within a specified range. This couple this with a blood test would determine the probability of the fetal having a chromosomal abnormality. A result better than 1 in 250 is considered safe, else, a different set of tests are done - which is said to have 1% chances of miscarriage.. Probability was killing me; still we were ok with it till the news of that we need to do our baby shower soon cropped up...

My wife did not even want anyone(apart from the first closest circle) to know abt the news till NT scan results came out fine, but our parents started to plan on a bigger event. It took a lot of shouting and consoling and more shouting and even more consoling to iron out the creases. Finally a decision was made - parents take care of baby shower, wife concentrate on the baby..

The date - Jan 10th

We were both tensed though, we did not show up, but was clear on our faces. The tension was overcome by another emotion, eagerness. We were to see "our" kutti for the first time. We were on all high dreams. How is she/he gonna look (we tot, it would be so clear in an Ultrasound and that too in the 12 week!!! Thinking back, I feel so silly now :) )

When we reached MediScan(MS), we were in for a huge shock. For starters, from outside, MS lookes like a small "akka" kadai mess. When we entered, wonder if it was an illution or something, it looked like a huge railway station. 100s of ppl, babies crying, names being called, ppl eating, ppl coming from there, ppl coming from here, TV sets on walls, etc., etc., etc,.(By the way, did I hear train sound too?? Of course, there was a railway track nearby :D).

I would skip the initial registration process done at MS. We had to wait for nearly 2-3 hrs, before we were called to the 2nd floor for scanning. There, a radiologist asked us if we would be willing to be a case study for MS's audit. She told, there would be no difference in treatment, it would be same, but jus in a different room. We were unable to think clearly, we just agreed.

I would skip the scanning process too. Upon completing the scan, the DOC told "All is well"(guess she had seen 3idots lately). Upon hearing this we were so over joyed we wer back to our cloud nine. Finally, we were asked to give blood samples to complete the NT test, and asked to collect the reports two days later.

Oh yea, did we get a change to look at the baby? Of course, we did, I would not lie. Consider this, when we were young, we would have been shown by our elders that this is mars planet, pole star, etc.  We would have jus nodded.  Similarly, they (the radiologist) show something and tell us this is the hand, and rest of the parts, and we just need to nod, as simple as that.  :D

The results came out to be very good, and said 1 in 8400 was the chance of our "kutti" had a chromosomal abnormality.

1 in 8400, after almost 3 months later I understood the significance of this probability