What I Wish I Asked My OB Before My 10-Week Appointment

When I was around ten weeks pregnant with my twins, I sat in my OB's waiting room with absolutely no idea what I was supposed to ask. I had a notebook. I had anxiety. I had a list that was mostly logistical — is deli meat really off-limits, can I still take Pilates — and zero real questions about genetic testing. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't know what I didn't know.

What nobody had told me: there were two tests I could have asked for by name.

The first is the Prequel® Prenatal screen, a noninvasive prenatal screen from Myriad® Genetics. It's a simple blood draw, available as early as eight weeks, that screens for chromosomal conditions like Down syndrome. It delivers results to 99.9% of patients, including those with twin pregnancies and high BMI. With two babies and no PGT-tested embryos, knowing what I was actually dealing with would have meant everything. 

The second is the Foresight® Carrier screen, which tells you whether you carry an inherited condition you could pass to your baby. It screens up to 274 genes across serious, inherited conditions, with a detection rate of  99% for the majority of conditions across ethnicities. Most of us are carriers of something without knowing it — the question is whether your partner is too. 

Both screens are from Myriad Genetics, both can be ordered together, and both are the kind of thing you want to know about before you're sitting in that waiting room (not after).

Walking in informed isn't the same as walking in without fear, but it's closer to walking in ready.