IVIG Treatment Update

Here is our pregnancy/IVIG treatment update:

Our first ultrasound picture of BK2.  We have had four already and are thrilled that they are monitoring our little nugget so closely!

I am going to start at the beginning and am going to try to be brief, so bear with me:

• When Abby was born she had no platelets.  This is because Steve and I have conflicting platelets   When she was in the womb, blood mixed in through the cord, and my body saw her platelets as foreign.  My body created antibodies which entered Abby's blood and killed all of her platelets   When she was born she had a blood transfusion and a dose of IVIG to help build her platelet count back up.  That worked well.  However, with her, it went more extreme than that and she had a bleed on her brain because her blood didn't clot for the first two days of her life.
• After Abby's birth, Steve and I got tested and there is a 50% chance of future pregnancies having this same issue.
• Because of the issues with Steve and my blood not being compatible I have to get treatments each week which help neutralize the antibodies that my body makes to fight off the baby's antibodies, that treatment is called IVIG.  I am amazed at how IVIG works because it targets the specific antibodies my body makes (HPB-3a) and works with that to neutralize the antibodies so they don't try to kill the antibodies of the baby.  Modern medicine is a miracle!
• I started my first dose of treatments yesterday.  It was a LONG procedure.  I got to the hospital at 6:00 pm and left at 2:30 am.  The procedure will hopefully be faster in the future as they are able to up the rate at which they give me IVIG based on how my body handles it. The procedure itself was fine.  I laid in a bed, had an IV and felt fine.  However, after the procedure was done, my blood pressure dropped pretty drastically and I had to stay at the hospital for about 2 hours after to make sure it came back up.  Other than that, I have had NO side effects (no headaches, nausea, fatigue, etc.)  I am glad my body is tolerating it well. 
• I have to have these treatments every week, so it has caused a bit of a disruption in our lives.  I am hoping that future infusions will be more smooth and I won't be at the hospital as long.  It was tough getting up today at 6:45 am when I didn't get home until 2:30 am (and then, of course, couldn't fall asleep...)
• There is a silver lining in all of this.  Well, several as a matter of fact.
• First and foremost, IVIG will alleviate all of the blood issues we had when Abby was born.  When we were in the NICU with her we were told she will have severe developmental delays.  From what we see of our daughter, she is a walking miracle and exactly where the Lord wants her to be.  We are still in awe of His healing power in her life.  We are so grateful for modern medicine and the wisdom of doctors to help us through this process.
• Secondly, as I said before, there is a 50% chance of this happening with future pregnancies.  You can test the baby at 20 weeks with an amnio (it isn't a "regular" amnio, because they need to get a specific part of the blood) but we can test to see if the baby has the "bad" platelets and if that is the case, I will continue to do IVIG treatments for the rest of the pregnancy.  If the baby doesn't have the "bad" platelets  I will not have to continue having IVIG and it will be treated as a typical "non high risk" pregnancy.  We are still praying about what to do with the amnio and would appreciate your prayers on this.  The IVIG treatments are not invasive to the baby AT ALL.  It is just an inconvenience for us.  However, the amnio is invasive (amnios happen successfully all the time) The issue here is that when you puncture with a needle (as you would with an amnio) there is the risk of mixing blood.  And when blood mixes, it is not a good thing if the baby has the "bad" platelets   The good thing is that my doctor has ordered IVIG treatments early, so that if we decide to do an amnio, and the blood mixes, and our blood is incompatible, then my body already has IVIG in it to neutralize the antibodies my body would create to attack the baby's platelets.  This is a LONG description, I know, thanks for bearing with me.  I am trying to keep it short.  
• So, our prayers would be the following:


• That my IVIG infusions would continue to be successful and that I don't have any serious side effects.
• That we would have wisdom as to what to do with the amnio and we would make the best decision for baby.  We are going to talk to the doctor in the upcoming weeks to get more information on that because, to be honest, I am not exactly sure of what all the details are with an amnio.
• That this is all covered by insurance.  It is about $1500/procedure. Doing that every week for 28 more weeks (yes, I am already counting down...it was a LONG night) is pretty expensive!
• And, as always, and most importantly, prayer for a healthy baby. 

A few pictures because a blog post wouldn't be the same without pictures...

The four bottles of IVIG that I got last night.  The first bottle took over three hours, but then they were able to up the dosage, but the end of the night, it only took 45-50 minutes/bottle.

A glorious picture of me..You can tell how thrilled I was about the IV in my right arm, being in a hospital gown, and being there for 2 hours not having gone through one of those bottles yet when I knew there were three more to go!