Martha,

Congratulations!  Please accept our best wishes and blessings for your pregnancy!

I started dex at 5 weeks of pregnancy with my 2nd child.  It did turn out she was ssw cah like her big sis.  Our perinatologist and endo said it was best to start the dex as soon as you found out you were pregnant.  Sexual development starts right away just like everything else with a baby.  If you want to take the dex, I would suggest you tell them immediately that you want to start it.  (If it were me I’d call today)  It won’t hurt the baby and you can ween down if it is discovered the new baby doesn’t have cah but if she does, you don’t want to wait.

I was going to have a CVS but because of some antibody issues after the birth of our first child it was to risky and very likely I would miscarry.  So we had an amnio.  It was sent to Cornell.  They drew blood on me, my husband and our oldest daughter.  It wasn’t bad.  I cramped for a day.  I think (this was 8 years ago!) it was 2 weeks after we knew we were having a girl so I stayed on the dex.  Another 2 weeks we found out we had a girl with ssw cah. 

I am so happy I took the dex.  Ellie was born unvirilized.  She has an enlarged clitoris but nothing we’re going to do anything about.  Everything else is fine.  It ripped my heart out when we had to have surgery for Abby.  Her urethra was routed wrong.  She had so many uti’s that by 2 1/2 months it became necessary to have the surgery because she became septic and antibiotic resistant.  It almost killed her.  It was nice to have a choice with our 2nd child.  Not to mention the delivery was planned and everyone was there so there was no discharging myself as soon as the epidural wore off, no mobile icu, no children’s hospital.

I wish you the best!  Please feel free to email me if you have any further questions!  Tonia@caresfoundation.org

Blessings,

Tonia