Earliest Reliable Test during Pregnancy

Hi Friends,

My wife and I are both have beta thalassemia trait, We have a 9 year old boy with trait. My wife was very sad during her pregnancy as doctors could not do the test till she was 4-5 months pregnant. We decided not to have more babies. Now she wants another baby. Is there a reliable early test to check if baby have the Beta Thalassemia disease. What is the worst outcome ? If baby has Beta Thalassemia disease, what will his/her quality of life be like ?

Thanks,
Sunny

Maybe you already received the answer to your question, but CVS (chorionic villius sampling) can be done between 11-13 weeks of the pregnancy to test for chromosomal normality--the window is brief.  If you're doing IVF, then PGD or CGH (comparative genomic hybridization) could be done on the embryo prior to transfer. PGD tests for 11  diseases I think, while CGH tests all 23 pairs of chromosomes for normality.