I confided my worries to a colleague, who made the decision for me: "I probably shouldn't be telling you this," she said, "but my friend got that test and had a gruesome miscarriage."

I canceled my CVS appointment. My doctor recommended that I take yet another blood test to measure my hormone levels; if I got good results, then I could even rule out an amnio with confidence. If not ... you get the picture. So I gave more blood and waited. A week later, The Call came to my work phone: "Genevieve, I think you should get the amnio," said Dr. G. This test directly contradicted the one I'd gotten only a few weeks earlier, putting me in the "high risk" category for Down. The odds that my baby would have the disorder were now 1 in 39.

One in 39?! I scheduled the amnio. That night, holding my strong, healthy 2-year-old boy in my arms, I tried not to imagine what it would be like if he were chronically ill—or (shudder) if he weren't here at all.

During the week leading up to the test, I did my best to stay positive, but it was no use. I'm a head dweller, and my thoughts about the baby I'd wanted so badly were now intertwined with darker thoughts, ones of abortion. Because that was what it came down to, I had to admit. I would be four months pregnant on the date of my amnio, and if something turned out to be terribly wrong, it would be another two weeks before I'd have the full test results and be able to terminate the pregnancy. It was an agonizing prospect, one that none of my friends who'd gotten amnios had ever talked about grappling with—in fact, several women I knew had breezily mentioned that they'd gotten the test and everything had looked fine, end of story. I wondered if they had considered what they would have done if it hadn't been fine. I asked this question of one friend, who'd had her second child at 40. "Oh. I would have—you know..." she answered, waving her hand as if to say, "Inappropriate question, move on." But shouldn't we be willing to answer it if we're willing to take this test?

That weekend, Ted's parents came to visit. He told them everything, and I could tell they were concerned. When they asked me the same question my friend had dismissed—"What would you do if something were wrong?"—I gave them the answer I'd always given myself, even before the question became real: "I'd get an abortion."

Ted's dad looked at his feet. His mom nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes discreetly passing over my protruding belly. I realized immediately how callous I'd sounded, how certain, and I wanted so much to assure them that I was neither of those things—that, yes, it seemed impossible for me to imagine raising a child whose handicap might well become the center of my life, but that on the other hand, I didn't underestimate my imagination, or my spirit, as much as I'd made it appear. Both, I hoped, had the capacity to grow under extraordinary circumstances, good or bad. In short, I wished I'd said to my in-laws that if I turned out to be the one woman in my statistical group of 39 who would have to face this decision for real, I might just keep my baby.

But I didn't say any of those things, perhaps because there's no tidy way to explain such a messy thought process to one's in-laws. In my awkwardness, I proclaimed something about needing to make Finn's dinner and darted into the kitchen.

Three days later, Ted squeezed my hand and made funny faces at me as a doctor inserted a long needle through the surface of my belly. Within 30 seconds, it was done. "Will you want to find out the sex?" asked the doctor. We shook our heads no. This was one unknown we weren't afraid of; both of us needed a little fun mystery in our lives right about then.

As it turns out, our child-to-be's chromosomes are all there, all whole, all healthy. The future, for the moment at least, looks just as clear and open as it did before the tests. But I will have to live with the idea that part of me does want perfect children, a perfect life. Is there anything wrong with that? Hell yeah—and I'm going to save this article and reread it whenever I need reminding of how far I am from perfect myself.