Pregnacy Problems

So back when I was 16 I was in a car accident where I received a blood transfusion. The new blood I received had an antibody. A little bit after the transfusion I got a letter telling me about the antibody so I have known about it for awhile. The antibody has no effect on me but they told me it might cause some complications during pregnancy. I told my doctor about it and he asked me if I had the anti-K antibody or the anti-Kell antibody. In the letter I got they told me I had anti-K. The anti-Kell antibody is much more serious and can cause a lot more problems with the baby so the doctor and I were relieved I only had anti-K. My doctor referred me to a perinatologist (a doctor who deals with higher risk pregnancies) to follow up. Looking at my blood work the perinatologist told me I did in fact have anti-Kell.

My mom was with me in the appointment because David had to work. I'm so glad she was there because this was scary news.  Basically if my baby has the Kell gene it will attach to his/her red blood cells. My antibody will then attack the red blood cells which obviously causes a lot of problems including things like heart failure. Doctors monitor the baby throughout the pregnancy and most likely the baby would need a blood transfusion while still inside my belly.

The doctor told me the next step was to have David's blood tested. If he had the Kell gene it would most likely be passed onto the baby. There was a chance though that David wouldn't have the gene. In this case the Kell gene would not be passed onto the baby and the baby would have no problems. We asked the doctor the likely hood of this. She told us that David had a 90% chance of having the gene. Bad news.

Mentally I thought there would be no way that David would be negative. The chances were so high that he had the gene. We got his blood work done and they told us we would know in about a week. Well a week later we called and the results were still pending.  We called again and the doctor had gone out of town. Finally almost two weeks later we got a call with the results.

They told us.... David is not a carrier of the Kell gene!!   90% of people carry the gene and he is part of the 10% that doesn't. This means we don't have to worry about this problem during this pregnancy or any of my future pregnancies!

We are beyond happy of this news. I'm still meeting with the perinatologist in 4 weeks to make sure everything still looks good but it looks like so far we are having a totally healthy baby.