Blood tests to check health of baby in second trimester

[sorprendida11]

Hey you amazing MDC moms.  I just found out I am pregnant--17.5 weeks--because after a miscarriage I never got my period. I assumed it was menopause because I had all the symptoms and I'm 43.  I'm a bit anxious about how the baby is because of the coffee I drank, the yoga poses I did. I know I can't do anything about it now, but I'm in Peru and want to gauge if it will be ok to do a home birth with a midwife, avoid the medicalized thing like I did when I was 36, at my age. So: any thoughts about this blood test they do where they test four different aspects of the hormones? 

I'll welcome your ideas.

[Jaimee]

Wow!  Congrats!!  That must have been quite the surprise!  And welcome to MDC!       I see you're due in November- come on over and join the November DDC to get to know others due around the same time as you!

I don't know anything about midwives in Peru- are they willing to take on older moms?  If so what does you midwife say about testing?   What tests would you plan on getting?  When I think of prenatal tests I think of the quad screen, amnio/CVS, nuchal translucency sono, anatomy scan, anemia blood test, glucose tolerance test, and GBS test.  Most of these I decline and it wouldn't change for me even if I were older b/c the question I ask myself is "what would you do with the information?"  For me the answer is nothing, but fret and worry.  Many of these tests have very high false positive rates, which sort of force you into getting more and more invasive testing.  I have gotten the anatomy scan with both my previous pregnancies and plan to get it again with this one.  But honestly I mostly do that to get a chance to see that baby as opposed to look for problems.  Though it is always nice to hear that everything looks healthy.

I'm sorry for your previous loss; was it considered a hormonal issue?  If you are worried only about your hormone levels then you could get your progesterone checked and look into supplementing if that is indeed an issue.   I'm not sure that a hormone issue would affect your plans for a home birth, but hopefully others can answer that question better than me.

Hope to see you around the November DDC!