A mom-to-be told Newsweek of the emotional impact she suffered on receiving surprising news during a 20-week anatomy scan which upended her previous gender reveal test.
Margie Perry Jones, 34, says in a video, which has gone viral, that the sex of their baby, previously determined to be a boy by normally highly accurate blood analysis, was incorrect.
Jones, from North Carolina, told Newsweek that she experienced mixed emotions when a doctor and 2 ultrasound technicians confirmed that she must in fact expect a baby girl.
Originally 'team girl', Jones was excited, but then reality set in. "I spent the weekend crying and told [my husband] that I feel like I've lost my son." In the clip, Jones shared that up until the 20-week mark in her pregnancy, her and husband, Larry Jones, were expecting a boy.
Jones told Newsweek that they had picked out a name and clothes for their baby boy, while the design of the nursery and baby shower were also planned.
At 12 weeks, the couple had opted for a noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), a blood test boasting 99.4% accuracy in determining a baby's gender.
But, after 2 ultrasounds and a blood test, it was confirmed that the Joneses were having a girl.
"As I learned some of the possible reasons for the test results not matching, a lot of sadness and anxiety set in," said Jones.
Experts at Labcorp—the gene-based testing center which performed the NIPT—had told her that it was most likely a "lab error or a vanishing twin," but there was also the very slim chance that her baby could be intersex—when a child is born with physical sex characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female.
Jones started looking into what that meant, describing her challenge as "a devastating rabbit hole to go down."
She said it meant that she would have to redo the blood test, but because the results would "take weeks" to come back, the mom-to-be be got a private 4D ultrasound done in the interim, which confirmed female reproductive parts.
"I was super relieved when a second blood test finally came back and confirmed [the] girl [gender] and no male chromosomes [were] detected," she said.
Newsweek reached out to Labcorp for comment and a spokesperson said in a statement: "Noninvasive cell free DNA prenatal screening (NIPT) can provide important information about a baby's health during pregnancy including genetic conditions. It also provides information about the sex of the baby.
"While our MaterniT® 21 PLUS prenatal screening test for fetal sex is highly sensitive (99.4%), in rare cases, due to biological reasons, test results can differ from a baby's sex at birth.
"As each situation is unique, we recommend talking to a health care provider or genetic counselor about individual results."
NIPT is widely regarded for its high accuracy in determining the baby's gender through analysis of fetal DNA in the mother's blood.
As stated, the chances of gender misidentification are extremely rare—0.6% in the Jones' case—but not impossible.
"There are certainly health care professionals out there who have seen this happen, but I'm thinking not many," Jones said.
"My ObGyn said neither he nor anyone in his office had ever seen it happen."
After sharing her video on TikTok, Jones said the reaction online has been mixed. Some users commented that they didn't want to be scared by this information, while others reported that they could relate to Jones' situation.
"I even had one or two really rude responses, acting like I'm an idiot for doing my gender reveal based on the NIPT test," she said. "Gender identity and gender norms are touchy subjects these days."
Correction, 7/17/2024, 6.14 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct the date of the NIPT scan from 21-and-a-half weeks to 12 weeks. It was also updated to correct quotes attributed to Labcorp.
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