Anti-Lutheran

Weeeeeellllll, we had our 12 week appointment today. And it was weird.





They did the standard blood tests three weeks ago, at my first appointment. In one of those tests, they discovered that I am now carrying an antigen (an antenna-like structure) on my blood cells called the Anti-Lutheran antigen. The most bizarre name in the whole world!!





I've been studying it all evening, and I think I finally have it figured out. Okay. Everyone has a blood type, right? A Positive, A Negative, B Positive, B Negative, etc. etc. Ben is B Positive, and I'm A Positive. There should only be problems between a woman's blood and her fetus's blood if the woman is Negative. A Negative or B Negative or whatever. So I haven't had any issues yet with any of my babies. Even if your kid is negative, as long as you, the mom, are positive, you are AOK.





However, things can change. If you receive a blood transfusion (which I haven't), OR if you give birth to a child that is Something Negative (which can happen even if both parents are positive, like Ben and I are), sometimes, during the birthing process, your child's blood can intermingle with your blood, making your blood think, forever after, that it's Something Negative. Like a positive cell putting on negative clothing. So, if your next baby is Something Positive, your dressed-up cell goes, "Oh. We are pregnant with a Something Positive baby. That's different from me. I'm confused and think I'm Something Negative. I'm going to attack this baby with my antibodies."





In plain language - this little war between my confused blood and this baby's blood could cause anemia in the baby. We have to test my blood every month to make sure my Anti-Lutheran levels remain low. If they get higher, we may have to give me this vaccine-like thing that prevents the development of more antibodies. From what I understand, that will be the worst of it. There are other antigens (Anti-Kell is the name of one of them) that are more lethal, that could require amniocentesis tests, which are risky for the fetus, or even blood transfusions directly into the fetus, inside the mother's womb. That thought makes me want to vomit. Can you IMAGINE??? The antigen I have is a "mild" one. There's mild, moderate, and high-risk ones.





So I consider myself lucky. There are all kinds of weird things we've had with some of our babies/fetuses. When I delivered Dylan, he had only one lifeline on his palm. The doctor was like, "Usually, only children with Down's Syndrome have only one lifeline on their palms." I, understandably, freaked out, but he ended up being perfectly fine. When we did the ultrasound for Sadie, she only had one umbilical artery and one umbilical vein, where she should have had two umbilical arteries and one umbilical vein. Again, I freaked out, and again, she turned out fine. My amniotic fluid got dangerously low with both Dylan and Sadie, and we had to induce Sadie. Again, causing me to freak out. I work so hard to get these kiddos here that I just don't want to lose them, you know?? I'm going to try not to freak out too much with this little one. It sounds like my doc is going to keep a strong watch over me and make sure nothing gets out of hand.





And no, I'm not one hundred percent sure that Micah has Something Negative blood. I need to go look in my safe where I put all of those things they give you after you have a kid. I have a feeling he did have a negative Rh factor, but I just can't remember. So I'll get back to ya on that.





We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat again, which is a huge relief. I'm past my personal miscarriage danger zone. And I get more and more nauseated with each passing day. I'm barfing at my usual three to four times a day. It's so weird to be grateful for nausea, but there you have it. I wanted to ask my doc for Zofran today, because it's really been difficult to be so ill all day long, but with all the hubbub about my Anti-Lutheran blood, I forgot. Plus, I'm already on thyroid medicine and anti-depressants (yes, the kind of anti-depressants that are safe for fetuses). And I just added my usual pregnancy necessity of Nexium, the purple pill. The miracle drug for heartburn. I don't want to add another pill to my arsenal, you know? I want this baby to be as safe as possible. I can buck up and deal with a little bit of nausea.





Sorry for the rambling. Other medical news in our family - Sadie is UTI-free now for a couple of weeks. We went to the urologist, and he prescribed her a low-dose, two-month-long regimen of antibiotics. If she gets another UTI after finishing that, we'll have to start doing ultrasounds to further investigate. He put me on this same kind of antibiotic for six months, and since then, no UTI's for me. I haven't had one for a whole year. A miracle. I hope this drug can do the same thing for little Sadie.





And the last bit of medical news - Dylan has something fluey/vomitey. It came on very suddenly. He's been barfing all night. He's sleeping in the living room with me tonight so I can help him aim for his barf bucket, clean up his barf bucket, wipe off his mouth, etc. He can't even keep water down, poor kid. It's going to be a loooooooooooooong night. I hope he's okay.