The First Step

A few troubling weeks had passed since we received the results of my blood test and we now had an appointment with a perinatologist. A perinatologist is an obstetrical subspecialist concerned with the care of the mother and fetus at higher-than-normal risk for complications. The meeting we had was less than informational as the doctor we saw had never dealt with this disease. We had done alot of our own information research on the internet and learned quite alot through medical journals and professional papers and the doctor we saw was able to tell us far less than what we found on our own. This was our first clue that this is a rare medical condition and made us hope that we could find a specialist that had seen and treated this condition. What ever the case, we were determined to not let ourselves needlessly worry and obsess until we knew for sure we needed to do so. Now, what we understand at this point is that the blood from my wife will not cross the placenta and attack our childs blood until week 16 or so. We also knew that to assess the health of the baby no real method existed until the pregnancy was 18 weeks along. The method that would be employeed when we needed was an ultrasound test called an M.C.A Doppler. M.C.A. stands for middle cerebral artery and doppler refers to the reflected sound waves being used to measure blood flow through this artery. If the blood flow through the artery was below a mean velocity then there was a good chance that anemia had not yet begun and we could rest for a week until the next test. We knew that at any given time the MCA Doppler could show that the baby was anemic and this whole ordeal would quickly be elevated to the next level. In the mean time I was promoted at work and given the chance to move to Phoenix, AZ to manage a branch of the company I work for. We decided to take the promotion and we moved to Phoenix where we got connected with the Phoenix Perinatal Associates. We knew that this was a great choice we made when we found out that if we needed we would be under the care of a pioneering doctor in the care of babies with Kell Isoimmunization, Dr William Clewell. And so from week 18 until week 24 we went for the weekly MCA Dopplers and felt like we were almost in the clear because all the exams had been normal. One factor in this whole process was what is called titer levels which refers to the levels of the anti-body in my wife's blood. She unfortunately had titer levels that were higher than anyone had seen. Her anti-kell titer level was 1:1056, the standard titer level that would cause concern and warrant weekly exams is 1:8. Just another bit of bad news in a time in our lives when things were happening that were so insane we didn't know how to deal, again we decided to take it day by day and not get crazy with it. No one wants to think that their unborn child is at risk for anything life threatening and we certainly could not concieve of this fact. Were we dreaming and would we wake up to find that everything was alright?