@jym626 oops no. Lol. It’s become such a part of my prenatal vocabulary that I just kinda forgot.
I have what are called anti-Ro/SSA antibodies (so SSA+ = SSA positive) that can cause fetal heart defects. It’s why I have to go in for weekly screenings beginning at 19 weeks. Thankfully, even when they do occur they are usually very mild. Unfortunately, most women who have pregnancies severely affected by them (by having a child with severe fetal heartblock or even stillborn) usually don’t find out until after birth.
SSA antibodies are associated with two of my autoimmune diseases (lupus & Sjogrens) but just being positive doesn’t mean you have them if that makes sense.
I am SSA+, as romani knows. Both my kids were fine, but they did a fetal echocardiogram on S2 as a diagnostic test, to be prepared if anything was amiss. (With S1, I hadn’t yet been diagnosed as SSA+.)
I’m sorry too about the La Leche issues. I would never have made it past the first days at home without the guidance of the leader I found at a La Leche yard sale.
I became a leader way back when. My co-leader and I were both working moms who used pacifiers and felt whole Foods for the Whole Family was a guide, not a bible. Also sent our kids to public schools, vaccinated and slept in separate beds. Our philosophy was what works for you is what works best.
IIRC, it was only one. Of course, he’s 30 years old now, so my memory may be wrong. But since the first one – at, maybe, 18-ish weeks?? – was normal, they didn’t do another one. At least, that’s what I remember.
They do so many because if they catch it early, large doses of steroids can help it. They explained it to me in detail but that’s as much as my brain was able to process at my 8 AM appointment lol.
Congrats on the good news and good luck with the amnio!
As for cloth diapers, we really planned to use them with my oldest when home. However, even with doublers, he soaked through everything at nap time and meant i had to not only change his diaper, but the entire outfit, and the crib sheets. The amount of extra laundry seemed to negate the benefits from not using disposables. Not sure if I didn’t do it right or if the diapers were not as good back 30 years ago!
I had problems nursing my youngest and a friend who was a big la leche person got my husband furious (and he is quite even-tempered) when she told him the baby would not be as healthy as the others if we gave him formula. I wanted to nurse him because I liked it with the other two and found it easier once established than dealing with bottles. I ended up going to a lactation consultant, using a supplemental feeding system including a tube and small syringe thing to give him formula while he was nursing. It is difficult to encourage and support breast feeding, while simultaneously supporting those who chose or cannot breast feed. Both are healthy choices.
I agree with others that whatever you decide will be the right decision for you. You’re going to be a great mom.
I used a diaper service for both babies and don’t regret it at all. We chose the twice weekly pickup option. We’d leave the mesh bag on the front porch and the truck came by and replaced it with a new bag of freshly laundered diapers. Smell was not a problem. They adjust diaper size as your child grows, at your request.
What I distinctly remember is that first diaper delivery. It seemed they’d delivered a veritable mountain of diapers and I couldn’t imagine that my baby would ever go through all of those. Little did I know!
Chorionic villus sampling is still done. The risk of miscarriage is (what I think of as) high, 1-3 percent, but it can be done much earlier than amnio, at 10-12 weeks of pregnancy. Probably makes sense for a woman who is in the horrible situation of having a high risk of a child with serious chromosomal abnormalities and who wants to be able to terminate her pregnancy earlier if she gets bad news.
Not sure those figures are still accurate. CF. For CVS, the rates are now considered similar to amnio, especially if done by the trans-abdominal method. It is also dependent on the doctor and his/her experience.
We didn’t consider CVS because we assumed we’d be able to do NIPT without problems. Alas…
The risks of the amnio are coming under increased scrutiny in the MCH literature. More and more it’s looking likely that there is actually no increased risk of miscarriage. Which is interesting as that’s why some women opt out.
Anyway.
Re the shaming issue. Both of my SILs bf and my sister uses super expensive formula so neither of those were helpful in figuring out how much ish to budget for formula. So I googled. Almost all the sites that came up were formula shaming. Apparently I’m not going to bond with my baby and I’m intentionally making them sick by formula feeding. If I really loved my child, I wouldn’t be looking up formula costs. ?
Never did find out about the cost because I didn’t really want to accidentally click on yet another site like that. shrug I’m not upset, just annoyed.
The diaper cover should prevent the clothing and bedding from getting soiled. The ones they have these days are even better than the ones I used 25 years ago.
I used cloth with all three most of the time and disposable when we went out. Diaper service with the first two and with the third I washed my own. Child three we were out more and I used disposable more so felt the service wasn’t cost effective. If you think you want cloth maybe register for some diaper covers as they can be expensive and you need multiples of them. Other registry items could be books. I always like to give books to begin to build a library. Babies get so many gifts and books are a gift that continues to give.
I didn’t find out the sex of any of mine. I felt that there are very few real surprises in life. I have noticed that how more couples are finding out the sex.
The absolute gold standard in non-leaking, fits every baby, idiot-proof cloth diapers is BumGenius Freetime. They are literally all-in-one (no covers, no inserts) with a snap configuration that works to fit every baby, though I am not sure about preemies. But they cost an arm and a leg and I doubt these are what diaper services use. When I am called to diaper my grandson, these are the only ones I can get on properly. (My daughter has an assortment of these and other, cheaper cloth diapers, but I cannot get the snaps and adjustments correct with Fuzzibunz or the other brands and they leak.)
I much prefer Pampers or Honest. Yes, they are more expensive over time than cloth, but anyone can get them on a baby.
Oh, and one critical point about cloth: you will need bigger clothes earlier because they are so much bulkier than disposables. My grandson was a big baby at birth (9’4" and 23 inches), but the newborn clothes never fit, mainly because of the giant diapers. So this is a consideration.
Huh. How about that. It was definitely a concern back in my day. I decided to take the risk, but it was something to evaluate. That’s great that there’s no increased risk. Romani, do you have a citation or reference?
It says 1-3 women who have the procedure will go on to have a miscarriage.
But now that I think about it, 10-12 weeks in pregnancy is early enough in pregnancy that some of those women would have had miscarriages anyway.
Yes, that has been the statistic but even back more than 20 years, there was some discussion that many of those miscarriages would have occurred even without the CVS. It also depends on how early it is done. And in my googling today, there are at least some researchers that say there is no increased risk, but not sure that has been confirmed. this was one study I found, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search.
I used a diaper cover, but it clearly wasn’t leak proof. Maybe the stomach sleeping we were advised to do then was part of it? I am glad things have improved for using cloth diapers!
@mom2and : That article says that the risk % typically used is probably too high, based on the reality that the procedure has been performed for years and that the operators who perform the procedure are experienced. However, it doesn’t give an alternative %, which I find frustrating.