After the stress of the last few days, since our first and disappointing midwife appointment, we got into the system the right way today. After a couple of failed attempts to interact with the system directly, we got the number of the community midwife team. This turned out to be in the shape of a lovely woman called Dianne who made our world a much happier and more relaxed place.
I explained how we were feeling stranded after our midwife meeting. That one major issue was not knowing which type of blood test we would be offered. Then I explained the other issue. Having been offered a meeting with the consultant if we were delivering at the Royal, we had only been given the switchboard number and told to sort it out ourselves with our chosen hospital.
First of all, we now know that Lothian Health Board offer the triple blood test. This is good, as Glasgow apparently only offer the double test, and the triple has a significantly improved diagnostic value. The ‘triple’ indicates that the test examines levels of three different chemical markers in the blood. The double test only measures two of these and as a result provides less information.
The second great news was that the midwife team would take responsibility for getting in touch with St. John’s, today, requesting an urgent appointment for us with a fetal medicine consultant. The even better news came less than an hour later when the wonderful Dianne phoned back to say that we have been offered an appointment on Friday at 09:45.
Friday morning it is. Our first chance to have a proper consultation on the value and risks of our various testing options. With any luck, we will also be able to find out what the clinician dependent miscarriage rates for amniocentesis is within the unit too. This will be a significant element in our risk assessment of this option. Whilst the ‘general’ figure across all units is 1% risk, there is significant variation from clinician to clinician. Some people achieve a far lower risk level than this.
So, big big sigh of relief. Hopefully, now that we’re in the system properly everything will go a lot more smoothly. Certainly that’s the experience of a couple of the guys I work with, both of whom opted for St. John’s and both of whom have nothing but praise for the standard of care there.