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Hello to everyone. I have read your posts and feel a bit optimistic. I am 34y and few days ago at my US I was told my baby boy has a EIF. Im 18 week and got very scared. Although my doctor said not to worry because all of my other tests are ok, I still find it very upsetting and scary. Its my first baby and we have been trying for a long time for him and now my poor angel has this thing in his heart. My doc said that its not a strong marker for DS, but I am worried also because of my age. My tests are 1:8500 and for the age 1:450. He also mentioned that this calcium deposit will dissolve on its own by the end of the pregnancy and that he sees it veyr often in his patients. I am just very scared...Please, share some posstive news to give me more strenght. Thank you all...

Hi everyone. I just wanted to check in and see how everyone is making out. Concerndmom..I'm trusting all went well with your amino and the results are normal. Welcome Kita101....You have come to the right place for comfort and support..well at least this forum has helped me alot. We all understand your fears and anxiety. Your not alone. I know no matter what is said, you will still think about the health of your baby but hopefully find it easier and easier to deal with. Almost all the families have been told the samething about this "marker". If you read back...(this forum has been going on for a long time)..you can see all the wonderful, positive outcomes and I hope to post mine sometimes in January. We all have are good days and bad days..I come here quite often when I'm having a bad day. Reading how many women have been told the exzact samething and have all had healthy babies makes me feel confident that I will to. I know I haven't said much but I truely hope you can find some comfort in knowing that this is very common and your not alone. Talk soon.

Hi everyone. Thank you, Boothy, for your support and warm words. I completely trust my doctor and since he said there is nothing to worry about, I know I should be calm, but its just knowing that your loved one has somethingthat is not supposed to be there, makes you go crazy. Indeed there are so many posstive outcomes and I read lots of articles on that topic, proving that when there is an isolated EIF, there is need for worries. ALso, it seems that biggest marker for DS is the NT, which in the first trimester should be >=3mm and for the second trimester >=6mm. I am going to ask my doc on my next appoitmnet next week to measure it. My doc told me that he has a patient whom babyboy had the same. Now he is a 4years old, healthy happy child. He didnt suggest amnio or going through more tests, as he said all seems fine and ok and I shouldnt worry. My question is, since its ok and nothing serious, why did he mentioned it at the first place?! Apparently, many babies had it and they were either born healthy with the EIF, or it dissolved by itself by the end of the pregnancy. Boothy, you are right, just by reading all the posts I feel much better and much calmer. Hope all goes well with your little one. I know it is very important to think possitively, so lets just support each other here in this forum.

hello, i posted to this forum back in June when a few markers (which started with the echogenic focus) were found in our baby. we had amnio and the results came back normal. our baby was monitered through ultrasounds throughout our pregnancy, the echogenic focus resolved itself 2 weeks after it was discovered, but the baby's left ventrical was a borderline measurement, which also resolved itself 2 weeks after it was discovered, but we were monitored nonetheless. i was able to enjoy my pregnancy finally at about 24 weeks, but i knew that i wouldn't be fully relieved until our baby was born. well ... he was born this past thursday, perfectly healthy and normally developed. i knew in my heart he would be perfect and healthy, but it was nice to finally be able to see him and also hear from the pediatrician that he was healthy and doing wonderfully. i read all about the other great outcomes, so i wanted to be sure to post our healthy baby story when the time came. i hope this is yet another story that gives other mothers some good hopeful rea__surring feelings, as the stories i read gave me. good luck to everyone and your babies.

im in the same situation and im so glad i found this board when i was 19wks they found an isolated EIF they told me not to worry but im so scared. im due on the 19th. can anyone tell me what to expect while in labor what test do they do on the baby after.

Hi. I'm here to vent again. As I mentioned before (and I think we can all relate to) I have good days and bad days with this. Today, is unfortunately a bad day. I'm now 37 weeks and due on the 24th and am finding that although I haven't worried much about it in the last few weeks, as I get closer to my due date, the worry is intensifying. To make matters worse, I've been having all these vivid dreams...some of them are very nice and involve a healthy baby playing with my older daughter etc. Some of them, however, involve me having a drastically deformed baby or a DS baby or a baby who dies. They're just awful and ruin my entire day (like today). Has anyone else had not so fun dreams like this? I know I just need to let it go and enjoy my last few weeks, but it's SO hard!! I'm also nervous about the delivery and that moment when I find out for sure if she's OK or not. Logically, I know the odds are amazingly in my favor, but emotionally I seem to be not quite so convinced. I hope everyone else is doing OK and I'll keep you posted.

Alamo24-i know what your going through i have my good and bad days and about the dreams im right there with you.. i am due on the 19th and im so scared. were are you from..

carlas28 - It's nice to know I'm not alone. We're both so close...at least the uncertainty won't last much longer. I'm in Durham, NC. You?

alamo24- im from NJ and yes it is so nice to know we are not alone. i have a ? did your doctor send you for more testing they told me not to worry didnt send me for no more testing or u/s.

carlas28- At my 20 week ultrasound, my doctor mentioned the echogenic focus, but just said that it's a normal variant, they see it all the time and wasn't at all concerned about it. She did not even mention the down syndrome connection or send me for further testing. I was fine with that. My husband (who is a pediatric resident) then mentioned the down syndrome connection and I freaked out, called my doctor, and she sent me for a level 2 ultrasound to help make me feel better about it. The second ultrasound did make me feel a bit better in that they didn't find any other abnormalities and the fetal medicine specialists also said not to worry, but I still do. It's just my nature. Since then I have mentioned it to all the doctors in my practice and they all say it is of no signifigance if it is the only finding on the ultrasound and that they see it constantly, especially since the ultrasound technology has gotten so good. The doctor I saw last week told me I was the 4th patient he had talked to about it that day! Stuff like that certainly makes me feel better, but of course there are no guarantees. I wasn't willing to do the amnio due to the risk involved. Plus my husband wasn't on board at all since he's not at all concerned that anything will be wrong with the baby. I just can't wait until I don't have to think about it anymore!

alamo24 - Oh good its the same thing that happen to me i went for the level II at 19 wks thats when they found it the Dr. did not seem concerned at all because my blood work and everything came out normal but im like you i have really bad day and good ones i cant wait for this to be over and hopeing everything will work out for me and you and everyone on this board.. the dr. that did the ultrasound didnt push me to have an amino and i wont but when i spoke to one of the dr. at the practice she was negative and was talking about termination and i almost lost it that day and when i spoke to my head dr. he was not worried at all and never mentioned it again to me..

Hi all. Alamo24 and Carlas28..I was just wondering what is the difference between a level 1 and level 2 ultrasound? I'm from Ontario and as far as I know here we only have one kind of ultrasound other then 3D. Do you have to ask for a level 2? I'm just wondering if it's something I should be looking into. However Alamo..it's nice to see that your husband is a pediatric resident. I'm sure being your husband... if he thought you had something to be concerned about he would be doing everything possible to find out. And he probably has close colleague's who know a lot as well. I always feel like my doctor isent telling me everything so it's nice to read that she has basiclly said the samething to me as you were told. My biggest fear though, is I didn't do any of the blood work in the begining of the pregnancy so they can't give me any ratio or positive/negitive answer to go on. All the docotors have said is that because I am under 35 and have no other risk factors, I would be in the low risk group. I was reading in one study..( I have read almost everything I can find on EIF..)..and it said that if EIF is isolated and no other markers or problems are found, then there is only 1% increase on a DS baby. ALSO...Most DS babies are born with NO signs at all. I'm like most of you though. I just dont want to think about it anymore and the only way to find out 100% is an amnio and birth. I dont know if I should risk amnio because I'm 29 weeks and the thought of waiting another 3 months is killing me..I feel trapped..:~(

Boothy- My understanding is that a level 2 ultrasound is just a little bit more in depth than a regular ultrasound. My level 2 took almost an hour and the tech really focused on other possible markers and we actually got to watch blood move in and out of the baby's heart and check on its functioning. Having said that, I've also heard that many OBs do level 2 ultrasounds from the start, so there would be no need to have a second one. You know, your comment concerning your fears about not having had any bloodwork got me to thinking...I wonder if it would have really mattered if you had had it? The reason I say that is because I did have the bloodwork (quad screen) and my risk came back extremely low (1:10,000) for DS. You would think that would provide some rea__surance for me, and I suppose to some extent it does, but even with results like that, I continue to worry since the test is only a screener, about 60% accurate, and there are obviously false negatives. So, point being, when it comes to something like this and the health of your unborn child, you're probably going to worry regardless without something like an amnio. Here's another positive story though: since finding out at 20 weeks I mentioned the EIF situation to probably about a dozen of my girlfriends with kids and 3 of their kids also had EIFs and are perfectly healthy.

Thank you alamo24!!! You are sooooo right. Even if I did have the screening and everything seemed fine, I still would be worrying!! I'm almost sick and tired of not being able to relax and enjoy being pregnant. I have a 7 year old healthy son who is so excited about becoming a big brother and all I can think about is how am I going to tell him if something is wrong. I have spoken with my doctors about all my anxiety and all they can say is stop worrying and if I cant and its effecting my daily life then do the amnio. Hearing all the wonderful positive stoires from everyone really helps. Thanks again and I think I'm going to ask my doc if I have had a level2 ultrasound already or not and go from there.

Boothy---with the amnio, you just have to go with your heart. I have high anxiety even when I am not pregnant and also had anxiety with my other two pregnancies and there were no markers with them. I knew the amnio was the only way for me to get through the rest of my pregnancy. I would never tell someone to do the amnio or not because of the risk but for me it was the right choice and I am so glad I did it. It has relieved so much stress in my life right now. I am only 26 weeks so I had a long way to go to worry that much. If you are considering doing the amnio just rememeber it is not as bad as you think. Like I said before, getting my blood drawn was more painful to me. It also depends on the doctor who does it. My doctor was a perinatologist and does them daily and was very good. I had total confidence in him. I also took off work for a week and stayed in bed for about 2-3 days and had lots of help from family with my other kids. Thank god everything turned out ok with me. Just pray about it and go with your heart. I know it is such a tough decision. I had alot of support from family but also got some criticism from others. But it was ultimately mine and my husbands decision and it was the right thing for us. I would not ever have terminated the pregnancy but had to do just so I could enjoy the rest of my pregnancy. I have a good friend at my church who also is pregnant and her baby also has the EIF. She is to be induced this monday. So I am sure she will have a happing outcome too. I still have anxiety but not about the EIF. I worry on days he does not move very well. I am a nurse at a hospital and work close with my OB doctor and alot of labor and delivery nurses and am constantly having them check fetal heart tones on me, at least weekly. They are so good to relieve my worries. So I am just a natural worrier. I am anxiously waiting for february to get here. Good luck on your decision and hang in there. You are going to be fine. Gretchen

alamo24 my blood screening came out the same thing 1/10,000 but i just came from the Dr. he always mentions it to me and said once the baby is born they will check the baby and im freaking out i guess its a bad day for me... on my level II thats when i found out about the spot and they said everything looked good and didnt send me for no further testing...