Saturday, October 30, 2010

There Needs to Be a New Rule About This

Skyler and I talked to the fertility doctor Thursday about the blood test.  I have "antiphospholipid syndrome," which is basically that my body goes into attack mode when anything new jumps on board, even my precious baby.  I likely developed the antibodies while I was pregnant with Gabriel. 

That doesn't make any sense, does it?  Is my intuition wrong?  Do I just dream up things in my head?  While I was pregnant with Gabriel, I was worried that he would be my last pregnancy - that I wouldn't be able to to have another baby after him.  Then, when he was born, I "just knew" that a brother or sister would be his gift to me.  All the while, my body was preparing itself to put an end to that next pregnancy, should it come to fruition.

I asked the doctor why I wasn't tested for this before my second pregnancy.  "We wouldn't test for something like that until after a miscarriage occurs," was his unacceptable answer.  A similar situation happened to a woman on this video.  I let it go because at that point, it wasn't going to help Tater Tot.  Telling him what I think wouldn't bring her back, but I wanted to tell him to do things differently.  There needs to be a new rule about this, a new protocol:  When a woman whose baby just died comes in to get pregnant again, for God's sakes, do everything in your power to keep that from happening again because she can't take it anymore!  Give her the blood test.  She won't mind if you wasted her time, but she will be forever grateful to you when she is holding her baby in her arms.

There is a treatment for this, and I am thankful to the women who have come forward to let me know that it worked for them - that even after repeated pregnancy loss, they now have healthy children.  I'm going to give myself two shots of Heparin (a blood thinner) twice a day throughout the duration of my next pregnancy along with a daily dose of "baby" aspirin.

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