Continuing the Story…

As I last left off, it was March 2020 and I had a positive pregnancy test, much to our surprise.  I was terrified; Dust couldn’t stop smiling. 

Given the anti-kell antibody diagnosis I had received 2 years earlier, I had joined a couple of alloimmunization groups on facebook.  While those groups were incredibly educational, they were also terrifying.  I had seen women have failed procedures, I had seen women lose their babies, I had seen the reality of anti-kell.  So not only did I have my incompetent cervix to worry about, the early miscarriage from two years earlier which I was afraid would happen again, I also had kell antibodies to deal with, which were even more terrifying.  I mean, my body literally attacks a kell positive baby inside me.  How freaking terrifying is that?  My body, which is meant to grow and nourish a baby for 9 months would literally destroy the red blood cells of that baby. 

Look, I get it, it was our choice to get pregnant, for anyone thinking that at this point.  Here’s the thing, though.  We knew the chance of our baby being kell positive was 50/50.  We really did not feel our family was complete.  We talked to a doctor experienced with kell, and felt that if we were, by some miracle, able to become pregnant, the pregnancy could be managed and we could have a healthy baby.  We knew those things, but it was still terrifying to actually find yourself in that situation.

I tried my very best to take it a day at a time.  I had a positive pregnancy test the evening of March 30, 2020.  I called my doctor’s office the next morning and went in for a blood test.  My HCG was 478, which was a strong number.  My progesterone was 14, with normal being 18-20, so I started on progesterone suppositories that very day.  I went back for repeat labs on April 2^nd, Kanon and Remi’s 4^th birthday.  My HCG was 1,083 upon the repeat, so it more than doubled, which was such a great sign.  In fact, I was a bit scared there was possibly twins again! 

I had my first ultrasound on April 23^rd.  At that ultrasound, we saw a healthy little baby!  The heartrate was good and all looked good.  And even better, the baby measured right on track for where I should have been in the pregnancy.  This was the first sign there was an issue two years earlier, as the baby measured a week behind.  When the baby was measured at the ultrasound, I know I breathed a sigh of relief when it was where it should be. 

However; of course, as always, nothing could be complication free.  As the ultrasound tech was doing the scan, I saw her measure a dark spot on the screen.  Knowing it wasn’t one of my ovaries (years of fertility treatments will help a person learn how to read scans, at least on an elementary level), I couldn’t stop myself and said “Is that an SCH?” (sub chronic hematoma) The tech, perhaps not expecting that, said, “A what?”, I replied, “A bloodclot?”  The poor tech…I didn’t mean to put her in an awkward position…she told me the doctor would have to talk to me, so I didn’t say anything else and figured I would ask my doctor when I saw him immediately following the scan.

After the scan, I moved into a room to see my obgyn.  He was so excited for me!  Of course, he tells me everything is measuring right on track, and then I told him I was sorry I asked the tech about the SCH.  He laughed and said, you’ve been through so many of these, you know what you’re looking at.  He confirmed there were actually two very small SCHs, but nothing to worry about at all. 

I had a follow up appointment two weeks later with my obgyn.  We took a video to send to Dusty (given COVID, Dusty was not actually able to come to the appointment with me.  That was so heartbreaking.  The only appointment he missed with Chandler and Paisley was the appointment where we discovered I was in labor.  He missed very few with Kanon and Remi.  Not having him there with me for these appointments with this pregnancy was hard, on both of us.).  My obgyn was the best, and would do videos and talk to Dusty on them and show him the parts of the ultrasound.  I was so thankful for that!

For my sanity, my obgyn brought me back in a week later (thank God for him).  He knew my anxiety would be killing me, so he brought me back in May 14^th to get another peak at the baby to make sure everything looked good.  All was good at that appointment as well.  While I was starting to be excited, I was also incredibly scared. 

After my appointment on May 14^th, my next appointment was May 27^th, and this appointment was with the MFM that I had consulted with two years earlier after the kell diagnosis.  At that appointment, I was almost 13 weeks (12 weeks 5 days).  We discussed doing an amniocentesis and decided yes, absolutely we would do that.  With an amniocentesis, we would be able to test the baby and determine whether or not the baby was positive for the kell antigen.  I was praying so hard that the amnio would be negative and I might actually have a relatively “normal” pregnancy.

To be continued…