i had my 24-week checkup on tuesday morning and as usual, it was pointless... pee in a cup, weigh yourself, any questions? ok bye! see you next time! *rolls eyes* only next time they want to do the glucose test and give me more rhogam... i refused the glucose test because i genuinely think it's stupid (in my case) and i am seriously, seriously considering refusing the rhogam too.
i just read on the rhophylac website--they manufacture the drug being pushed on us--that "Rh-negative mothers have a 1%–2% risk of being sensitized during the last trimester of pregnancy." please! compared to the possibility, however slight, of damaging the immune system of the baby, it's not worth it. i have decided i will let them test me for antibodies, and if i am not sensitized i am not getting the shot. i had the one at 12 weeks after i bled, so there is no reason i should be sensitized even if the baby's blood DID mix with mine during the bleed. i am also going to ask them to test matt's blood type so that we can stop fussing altogether if he is also Rh-. maybe after birth i will get it, depending on what happens...
but anyway, so the midwives have been hounding me since october to go "get a letter" from my hematologist proving that he actually doesn't want me on blood-thinners... so finally yesterday i went. i had to wait almost 3 hours to see him, which really sucked, but in the end it was totally worth it! he is seriously the best, most reasonable, intelligent doctor i have ever seen. he remembered me, first of all, and to my great relief repeated exactly what he had said the last time, essentially: "in your case there is no reason to think you should be on heparin." i had prepared a letter for him to sign to that effect--and not only did he sign it, but he did one better! he wrote a note specifically stating that he feels the risk of being on blood thinners is greater than the benefits in my case. wait for it... ... I TOLD YOU SO! take that, cowards! *doing the victory dance*
yes, i am really happy about this. finally, logic prevails over paranoid OBs. i could have hugged him.
another fun part of the visit was his little evolutionary history speech given for the benefit of the med student observing us... he tells the story of the origin of factor v leiden something like this:
'FVL originated from a single mutation in a single person sometime in prehistory and in scandanavia/northern europe, when and where people's diets were primarily meat-based due to long winter seasons. this single mutation, which essentially allows the body to preserve (via excessive clotting) valuable iron and blood proteins during injury or childbirth, was so important to the survival of these people that it was inherited and spread to at least 15% of the regional population from just one instance of mutation. to classify it as a "problem" is not entirely fair, since its very inheritance was a survival advantage to those who had it. yes, sometimes people would die from complications related to having clotty blood, but that happened to only a very small percentage of the carriers. nowadays a person with FVL has a 1 in 10,000 chance of developing a blood clot over a lifetime; pregnant women with FVL have the increased risk of 2 in 10,000, provided they have never had a problem with it before. 2 in 10,000 is not something to fret over.'
by the end of his speech the med student was laughing and nodding, understanding another tiny piece of the fear-biases present in the medical community. you can't learn if you don't question; and sometimes when you do, everything you thought you knew needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
when i left he asked me not to name my daughter Leiden, but to take her there someday. i said i hoped to :)
i just read on the rhophylac website--they manufacture the drug being pushed on us--that "Rh-negative mothers have a 1%–2% risk of being sensitized during the last trimester of pregnancy." please! compared to the possibility, however slight, of damaging the immune system of the baby, it's not worth it. i have decided i will let them test me for antibodies, and if i am not sensitized i am not getting the shot. i had the one at 12 weeks after i bled, so there is no reason i should be sensitized even if the baby's blood DID mix with mine during the bleed. i am also going to ask them to test matt's blood type so that we can stop fussing altogether if he is also Rh-. maybe after birth i will get it, depending on what happens...
but anyway, so the midwives have been hounding me since october to go "get a letter" from my hematologist proving that he actually doesn't want me on blood-thinners... so finally yesterday i went. i had to wait almost 3 hours to see him, which really sucked, but in the end it was totally worth it! he is seriously the best, most reasonable, intelligent doctor i have ever seen. he remembered me, first of all, and to my great relief repeated exactly what he had said the last time, essentially: "in your case there is no reason to think you should be on heparin." i had prepared a letter for him to sign to that effect--and not only did he sign it, but he did one better! he wrote a note specifically stating that he feels the risk of being on blood thinners is greater than the benefits in my case. wait for it... ... I TOLD YOU SO! take that, cowards! *doing the victory dance*
yes, i am really happy about this. finally, logic prevails over paranoid OBs. i could have hugged him.
another fun part of the visit was his little evolutionary history speech given for the benefit of the med student observing us... he tells the story of the origin of factor v leiden something like this:
'FVL originated from a single mutation in a single person sometime in prehistory and in scandanavia/northern europe, when and where people's diets were primarily meat-based due to long winter seasons. this single mutation, which essentially allows the body to preserve (via excessive clotting) valuable iron and blood proteins during injury or childbirth, was so important to the survival of these people that it was inherited and spread to at least 15% of the regional population from just one instance of mutation. to classify it as a "problem" is not entirely fair, since its very inheritance was a survival advantage to those who had it. yes, sometimes people would die from complications related to having clotty blood, but that happened to only a very small percentage of the carriers. nowadays a person with FVL has a 1 in 10,000 chance of developing a blood clot over a lifetime; pregnant women with FVL have the increased risk of 2 in 10,000, provided they have never had a problem with it before. 2 in 10,000 is not something to fret over.'
by the end of his speech the med student was laughing and nodding, understanding another tiny piece of the fear-biases present in the medical community. you can't learn if you don't question; and sometimes when you do, everything you thought you knew needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
when i left he asked me not to name my daughter Leiden, but to take her there someday. i said i hoped to :)
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