On the third day, we got a phone call. But even if I was there, I still think I would have wanted to see the detail on the scan. You can change your cookie settings at any time. She endured many agonising rounds of scans and tests, and unfortunately met with some unhelpful attitudes from some healthcare professionals. Some things can be seen more clearly than others. He started to scan me with a cold expression, then told me, "it didn't look good" and that "my womb looked raggedy". I'd had the scan in the scanning room, I can't remember what they call it now, it's silly, it's gone from my head. The rarest scenario is that the baby is severely ill and choices will need to be made. And shortly after that, that scan we'd finished and the consultant leant back and said, 'I'm afraid we have some problems here'. I still feel guilty, I still cry at random times. We felt as if we were in limbo. Enough for two weeks after he had been cremated. You get extra care and monitoring as appropriate and baby is proactively treated. Sometimes specialist scans such as 3D scans, or MRI scans, are used to examine the baby in greater detail. I did think it was a bit strange that she wasn't talking, and then she sort of said, 'Oh, I think there's a problem. The thing about that which I felt was difficult is that we could tell when being scanned that there was something very seriously wrong. Our week-by-week PREGNANCY emails are a must for parents-to-be. The nursery I had selected for our two-year-old son; my maternity leave; the bunk beds; the summer holiday suitable for a newborn baby. You're in and out and that was it. And in this instance the scan was very evident that there was something very seriously wrong. Wishing to be anywhere, but here being told the same agonising truth over and . And, for a few hours, I'm convinced I've made a terrible mistake. That he was small. All my plans were beginning to fall down. It was positive, and I felt elated. I broke down and started hitting my disgusting body that had done this. 'Soft markers'. I was disgusted - disgusted that such a tablet existed, let alone that I should have to take it. I would be put to sleep, and when I woke up I wouldn't be pregnant any more. The doctor gave her consent, and I took the four little tablets. It is impossible to escape them and each one underlines your loss. The same sense of expectation. For example, some babies have a condition called open spina bifida, which affects the spinal cord. That he - I think I was 21 weeks and 3 days, and he was coming up at 19 weeks and 4 days, or something like that. An hour passed and I started to panic. I want to be nice again. My partner really wanted me to, and by that time I had no sense of what was right or what I should do. I travelled to work that day feeling amazing. Do you have any thoughts about that? So when that happened to us I really didn't worry, I thought, you know, it was literally the baby was in awkward position, they couldn't see the heart and that was why. The screen may be directly facing them or at an angle. Possibly with hindsight we could have been more worried about it, but was probably a good thing we weren't, because we weren't worried about anything basically. There's nothing wrong, you know, we've had all the tests, everything's fine,' and being very upbeat about it all. Had 34wk scan last week and all is well - of all the babies found to have a two vessel cord, was told less than 6% experience any growth issues etc. She didn't want to see the baby. Living in this world must be unbearable for them. And I remember, the first thing I remember when something might be wrong, was I saw, I finally, we finally saw an image of the skull on the screen, and there appeared to be a sort of black hole shape in the middle. He felt doing more blood tests would only cause me more discomfort and false hope. For many other women, the 18-20 week scan was the point at which they discovered the baby had serious problems. It's part of our family. I had no idea if we were doing the "right" thing. Our baby was beautiful. The following is a quote from their report: If the scan reveals either a suspected or confirmed abnormality, the woman should be informed by the sonographer at the time of the scan. Nights were impossible. Two days, after on Christmas Eve, (my 12 week date) I had more blood tests. It was probably all right but hadn't had any fluid in it at the moment. It seemed a very arbitrary system, and so you quite often sat outside in the waiting room for a couple of hours before you actually got to see the consultant, which was, seemed you know, I kind of remember thinking before we went in to see him on the particular day when we found out there was a problem, 'Why are we sitting here? I hadn't thought about the mechanics of such a late termination, but had assumed it would mean some kind of operation. It doesn't remove the guilt, but I don't know what else to do. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. You know there's always that bit on the bottom of the thing, 'These are diagnostics, do not bring other children,' - blah, blah, blah.. it's not, you know, it's not a family outing kind of thing, but it feels like it. I've still had no cramps or bleeding so fingers crossed everything is ok I just couldn't believe I fell down the stairs, I can't remember the last time I ever did that! The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) have produced a report on Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality in England, Scotland and Wales (May 2010). I ran into the bedroom to tell Sam, who was ecstatic. No discussion, no quiet contemplation. I wasn't unduly worried at all. Has anyone been told the wrong sex at 20 week scan? For once in my life, I had been organised. As soon as we arrived, we were shown to this little room. So we'd gone through the Down's syndrome or worse scare, we'd had conversations about what we would do, if it was confirmed that it was Down's syndrome or another syndrome, another sort of chromosome abnormality. And so we had to go out a couple of times, [wife] had to walk around, and she had a drink of water, which is supposed to sort of change things inside, or help the baby turn around or something because the sonographer couldn't get the measurements she wanted. It is also sometimes referred to as the mid-pregnancy scan . I just feel very unlucky. Seeing your baby on a screen can be really exciting. We understand the real meaning of "shit happens". For example, the babys brain, kidneys, internal organs or bones may not have developed properly. And I'd been on the internet looking up all sorts of things and everything was so negative, it was very depressing, because I thought, 'Well, maybe they've made a mistake, or maybe it's something they can fix, I don't know'. For instance a couple who knew their baby was 'on the small size' were told he was fine at the 18-20 week scan, but discovered at 32 weeks that he had microcephaly. This does not mean there is anything to worry about. I mean the lady who was scanning was very quiet for a long time. What happens at the second midwife appointment? And the doctor - because it was a doctor rather then just the, a sonographer or whatever the correct term is - was scanning my wife, and she hovered over the heart of the baby and said, 'Oh there's the heart, we'll come back to that'. My partner spent the weekend trying to convince me that things were OK. Most scans are carried out by specially trained staff called sonographers. After preparing myself to face having to take the medication. She advised I be referred to the EPU to be assessed. The scan will look in detail at your babys bones, heart, brain, spinal cord, face, kidneys and abdomen. No one else ever met the object of my grief. We went, I went in to the scanning room and they're quite bland facially anyway, whether everything's fine or not they just look at the screen to start off with and do measurements but I very quickly realised that the woman's demeanour wasn't, even for a bland face, was concerning. This scan takes place between 18 weeks and 20 weeks 6 days of pregnancy and is commonly called the 20-week scan. We bought little outfits, teddies, and researched all the vitamins and foods that I could eat. Within it are a number of recommendations for the communication of findings from ultrasounds. The baby kicked, blissfully unaware of what I had done. Some of the other conditions, such as heart defects, are more difficult to see. However, a few hours later there was another shift change. Eventually, the doctor finished the scan and said that some of the baby's measurements were very small. So we went back the day after Boxing Day, the 27th, and the consultant greeted us, which made my alarm bells go, and she started scanning us and I think her lines were, 'What concerns me about this baby is that they've got a diaphragmatic hernia, which has meant that part of the stomach of the baby was in its chest cavity.'. I felt the dread run through me. Can you describe the difference between the scan at this later stage in a pregnancy? or sort of light chat that we'd, we'd experienced before with previous scans. Intellectually, I knew this was not the case. And so we talked about it euphemistically, never saying the word "research". I don't know how we got through the next couple of days. We were told to go to the hospital immediately. Went back a week later for the scan and, you were with me for this one, weren't you? Last updated July 2017. But she told us, she told us, she gave us some more detail, she said, 'There's this, there's a big gap in the brain where there shouldn't be'. I couldn't bring myself to push. I had to be rescanned latter. 2022. At which point they turned round and said, 'Well, there is something very seriously wrong with the baby, we don't know exactly what, but you do need to have a more in-depth scan at your regional hospital to find out the detail'. The scan can provide information that may mean you have to make further, important decisions. It is essential that all practitioners performing fetal anomaly ultrasound screening should be trained to communicate abnormal findings to women, as such information is likely to have significant emotional impact. Soon, the doctor came and inserted the tablets that would induce labour. He wanted to talk about it, but I didn't. And also what the prognosis would mean for our two year old: now a very happy child, he would have a completely different childhood with such an ill sibling. 20 week scans look for 11 different anomalies as a rule, however, indicators (markers) are not terribly reliable and in all the literature I found, the targets set for stonographers look like they only pick up around 50% or less of these variants. So we decided that, to have the scan and we went along I think early in the week for that, and spent quite a lot of time with the consultant after that. I didn't have a clue. These opinions do not represent the opinions of Tommys and are not advice from Tommy's. I wanted to be a passive patient while the doctor did what he had to do. So on the Monday we went in to see the senior sonographer, I think she was a consultant at the hospital. The results come in stages. And my partner and I would have a completely different life from the one we'd imagined. And you know, we were laughing and joking. And I assumed my partner would feel the same. But the closeness has remained after the drama has died down. Tears started to roll down my face. Sometimes doctors will wait to give the baby more time to develop and carry out repeat scans - this had confused several parents we talked to who had gone for repeat scans not knowing that the baby might have a problem. I had to wait for a doctor to explain the situation. Some people we talked to had not had a 18-20-week scan, either because their babies' abnormalities had been detected by earlier diagnostic tests (e.g.
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