Minus One

Because of my status as a high-risk pregnancy my prenatal care has recently been transferred from the Naval Hospital which is right next door to our housing area to Madigan Hospital, which is about a 45 minute drive away. Madigan has some of the best OB specialist in the area and a facility to handle anything type of labor and delivery.

Now, besides the fact that I have Sickle Cell Anemia, the doctors at Madigan have recently discovered a new factor that makes me high-risk.

First, let me give you some background information. Now as everyone knows and baby survives in the womb through the umbilical cord. A normal umbilical cord consist of three blood vessels: one large vein that carries oxygen-rich blood and two small arteries, which transport waste products and oxygen-depleted blood from the fetus back to the mother for recharging.

However, all ultrasounds have shown that I am minus one of these arteries. Sometime during the early stages of my pregnancy one of the arteries appears to have developed a blood clot and died. This is not uncommon, but it has left the one artery struggling to do the work of two.

Our doctor has informed us that as a result of this missing artery there is a good chance that our baby will be born a little on the small side. This in itself is really not a problem. But since having Sickle Cell Anemia increases my chances of a premature baby, the possibility of having a premature low-weight baby is not a good thing.

So from this point on I am to be seen by the OB specialists at Madigan every two weeks. By 34 weeks I may be asked to check in with the doctors twice a week depending on how things are going.

There is really no way to prevent our girl from being born small, so we are concentrating on preventing a premature birth. With the double amounts of doctor visits we hope to catch anything odd that would be a sign of a pending premature birth and be able to correct it early. This may mean possible bed rest near the end of my pregnancy. Of couse for me, not working and laying in bed all day watching Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

To date, Elektra is doing fine. I am 23 weeks now and she is weighing in at 1 pound 4 ounces. A very normal size for her age. She is kicking and moving around like crazy. The ultrasounds have shown she has a nice healthy belly and she has no problem drinking away at her amnio fluid. My own belly is slowly getting bigger, making room for this little girl who has just discovered she can use her hands to rub the inside of my belly.

Since the start of my pregnancy I've gained 3 pounds and 7 ounces at the time of this blog. Ray says that maybe my body has been using a lot of my pre-pregnancy fat to help grow the baby, (which would explain why I lost so much weight in the first trimester). Hey, I'm more then happy to share my fat with our little girl. Lord knows I've got too much of it stored in my butt anyway.

So, I'm not too sad over the fact that I won't be pushing out a 9 pound kid. I really didn't want to give birth to a bowling ball anyway. I know that in the end Elektra will come out healthy and beautiful.