Today I am 28 weeks pregnant and my boy is healthy! What a gift to be able to make it all the way to the third trimester with a living baby inside. So many women never make it this far. What I would have given to get all the way to 28 weeks with Lucy.We just had the third IUT on Friday and baby handled it really well. Dr. Trevett scheduled this IUT for exactly two weeks after the previous one. The baby’s MoM on Tuesday was around 1.39 and we did the transfusion three days later. We followed the same sedation methods for baby and me as we did last time and it worked well again for both of us. The baby’s hematocrit was much lower than I expected- 20.9 and he was basically surviving off of the donor blood Dr Trevett gave him two weeks prior. They got his hematocrit up to 40 and baby is now 100% Kell negative donor blood. We will do the next transfusion in 13 days. The reason we have to continue doing intrauterine blood transfusion even though baby now has Kell negative blood is because the donor blood eventually dies off and the baby needs more blood as he grows. Doctors use a calculation to determine when the baby will drop low enough for another transfusion. They estimate that the baby’s hematocrit will drop one point per day, so if the baby is at 40 right after the IUT, he will be around 27 at his next IUT in 13 days. Next week I will have my chest port removed since I’m not using it for IVIG infusions anymore. I’m excited to finally be port and permacath free in a few days! Dr Trevett’s goal is to do the last IUT at 35 weeks and deliver at 37 weeks. If that is the case then I have four IUTs left which is overwhelming to think about. Thank you as always for the prayers and support as we navigate the last portion of this pregnancy. Here’s a picture of the belly at 27 weeks (measuring closer to about 30 weeks.)
Losing Lucy and Finding Hope 