My Wife and I Have Been Offered a New Prototype DNA Test for Our Pregnancy

Doctors here in Northern Virginia offered to give us a prototype DNA test for my wife's pregnancy (10 weeks into the pregnancy). This is a brand new technology that detects chromosome issues such as Down's Syndrome and Edwards/Trisomy 18. Currently tests such as amniocentesis and the CVS test are used to detect these issues. Our OBGYN says this new test may replace those older tests within 5 years or so. Because they are invasive, amnio and cvs carry some risk of miscarriage. This new test analyzes fetal DNA in the mother's blood and therefore is virtually risk free.

We used IVF (In vitro fertilisation) in order to get pregnant. I have an incredibly bizarre mild form of cystic fibrosis. Normally people with CF die before reaching adulthood. I'm 40. Johns Hopkins is still scratching their heads. As my wife always suspected, I'm a mutant. CF in mild cases causes males to not develop the vasa deferentia tubes that deliver sperm, so I essentially had a natural vasectomy. My wife does not have CF, and isn't a carrier, so there's no increased chance of our child having it. Also, it looks like they are closing in on a cure. The doctors had to extract sperm from my testicles using a needle (called a testicular aspiration). Men out there, I can tell you - needles in the balls is not a fun thing at all. After being extracted, the sperm was then cryogenically frozen (ala Han Solo :^) ).  The fertility doctors also gave us the option to cryogenically freeze embryos. I expressed concern over potential birth defects because of this and was surprised to learn that cryogenically frozen embryos tend to have *LESS* of a chance of birth defects. I hypothesized that maybe only the stronger survive the freezing process. Researched this and indeed this appears to be the likely reason.

All of this genetic testing has me thinking about various science fiction, e.g. Gattaca lately, whether in the near future it will be used for "designer babies". I used to have this "let nature do what nature's going to do" way of thinking in regards to genetic engineering. Lately, I'm not so sure. Is it so much to ask to want a healthy child?

My previous post about genetic testing, etc.

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"Email is not Broken, We Are" (LifeHacker)

SUMMARIZED:
In “Email is not Broken, We Are”, Joshua Lyman writes that there are many articles about how email is broken and propose making faster, better email programs. He thinks the real problem is we are overwhelmed with it. We use it wrong. It’s silly that we allow email programs to check for mail every five minutes. It’s killing productivity. Segmenting email usage to 2, 4, 8 time a day has huge benefits. Some suggested solutions: stop checking constantly and disable desktop alerts. Set up a “social contract” with your coworkers. It's hard not to check email (as well as twitter, text messages, etc, etc) constantly. We are wired with that Pavlovian response, our brains get that little reward of endorphans, but it's really causing problems.

MY TWO CENTS:
When I’ve broken up email usage to a handful of times a day, and turn off instant messaging, I notice a big difference in productivity. You definitely need to give coworkers a heads up when you start doing this. At one office I worked at, everyone was forced to use instant messaging. When someone messaged you, if you didn’t answer within a few seconds, they were at your desk. This caused constant distractions all day long. It was almost impossible to focus.

What are your thoughts on this?