Have any of you had experience with this or can you shed some light on this situation for me?

I had my 18-20 week ultrasound yesterday and I had thought it went well until the doctor walked in and spent the better part of an hour dumping everything that was wrong with my baby on me. Then shuffled me off to a genetic counselor for another two hours.

She said that there were multiple soft markers that my baby has Down Syndrome and seemed pretty confident that my child is guaranteed to have it. She also said that my baby is at risk for cystic fibrosis and that she thinks I’m at risk for preeclampsia. But she felt the need to stress the severity of the Down Syndrome situation multiple times. So, that was a lot to swallow.

They told me the only way to fix the problem would be to terminate the pregnancy, but abortion is not an option for me. I asked them multiple times if they could let me know an approximate percentage chance of my child having an abnormality and all they could tell me was that he is high risk. But I have no clue what that actually means or how accurate these soft markers even are.

This is my first child, but my husband and I at perfectly healthy and young (I’m 23 he is 25) and there are no genetic disorders in our immediate or extended family.

Has anyone else been in this situation or know what I could do moving forward? Or does anyone know how accurate this stuff even is? I just feel so confused and helpless.