At 18.5 weeks, we are finally pleased to officially announce baby girl #2! It was a crazy journey to get this exciting moment. At 6 weeks, we got a phone call from our OB, Dr. Thordarson, telling us that upon my first blood screening, some random antibodies that were pleasant were a bit off the charts. As it turns out, Corey has a protein on his red blood cells (Kell) that he passed on to Deia. When Deia was born, and I was exposed to her fetal blood, my body recognized this component of his/their blood type and immediately rejected it...creating the antibodies. So we tested Corey's blood to get more information and, fortunately, he is heterozygous for this blood type....which means that there is a 50/50 chance that he passes on Kell to any pregnancy. If Kell were to be present in baby 2's blood type, then in time my body would recognize it as foreign and begin to attack the baby...plummeting it's blood supply and causing her to become anemic. There was nothing we could do but wait until 17+ weeks to get an amnio that would tell us if Kell were present or not. The 10 days after that test might have possibly been the most intense, most torturous and traumatizing days of my life so far. We've seen this baby in multiple ultrasounds and I had already begun to feel her movements. The thought of terminating a pregnancy almost mid way through a full term was too much to bear. And knowing that the only options ahead would be to do that or multiple blood transfusions in utero via umbilical cord...with very little evidence and case studies that prove it to be foolproof... Words don't exist to describe the thought process behind door 1 or door 2. Thankfully, we got the best news of all!!!!!!!! It didn't ring true until I was able to barely reconcile being so indifferent about the pregnancy for all of those months. But slowly my belly grew and the movements were more consistent and we were in full swing of it! What a ride. Thank gawd for modern medicine......
Baby Girl # 2!!!!!!!! 18 Weeks
At 18.5 weeks, we are finally pleased to officially announce baby girl #2! It was a crazy journey to get this exciting moment. At 6 weeks, we got a phone call from our OB, Dr. Thordarson, telling us that upon my first blood screening, some random antibodies that were pleasant were a bit off the charts. As it turns out, Corey has a protein on his red blood cells (Kell) that he passed on to Deia. When Deia was born, and I was exposed to her fetal blood, my body recognized this component of his/their blood type and immediately rejected it...creating the antibodies. So we tested Corey's blood to get more information and, fortunately, he is heterozygous for this blood type....which means that there is a 50/50 chance that he passes on Kell to any pregnancy. If Kell were to be present in baby 2's blood type, then in time my body would recognize it as foreign and begin to attack the baby...plummeting it's blood supply and causing her to become anemic. There was nothing we could do but wait until 17+ weeks to get an amnio that would tell us if Kell were present or not. The 10 days after that test might have possibly been the most intense, most torturous and traumatizing days of my life so far. We've seen this baby in multiple ultrasounds and I had already begun to feel her movements. The thought of terminating a pregnancy almost mid way through a full term was too much to bear. And knowing that the only options ahead would be to do that or multiple blood transfusions in utero via umbilical cord...with very little evidence and case studies that prove it to be foolproof... Words don't exist to describe the thought process behind door 1 or door 2. Thankfully, we got the best news of all!!!!!!!! It didn't ring true until I was able to barely reconcile being so indifferent about the pregnancy for all of those months. But slowly my belly grew and the movements were more consistent and we were in full swing of it! What a ride. Thank gawd for modern medicine......
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