The Background: How it Started

My story began on a Sunday at church Fathers Day weekend. The pastor decided to do something that he had never done before, he asked all of the fathers in the congregation to stand. He then Asked them to come to the front of the chapel and he said a prayer - a prayer of leadership and wisdom over them and he anointed each and every one of the men with oil. I was in tears, as you can imagine.

When we got home later that morning I felt off.. By off I mean, I noticed my eyelashes were unusally long and luscious (LOL). I decided to take a pregnancy test because, why not? As i stood in the bathroom and waited those dreaded 3 minutes I began pacing back and forth and sure enough, I was pregant with our second child. I told myself this time I wouldn't just run out and throw the pregancy test at my husband like I did with our first, I wanted to make it special. So, I ordered a onesie that read "Congratulations" and shipped it to our house with my husbands name on it. He was understandably confused when he got home from working his 12 hour shift because he didn't order anything. I attributed it to his mom sending a gift to the house for our son. His reaction was priceless, a memory i will store in my heart forever.

SHOOK

In the preceeding weeks, I became very sick. I was sick with my first pregancy, but this was a completely different ballgame. Vomiting all day long, dry heaving when nothing was left, I had patechiae all over my face because of it, heartburn that really resembled more of GERD, I truly believed I had a stomach ulcer due to a burning pain in the pit of my stomach that wouldn't go away. I remember on several occasions during these first 16 weeks, telling my husband that I felt like I was dying - truly dying.

Lets rewind a bit,

Back in 2016 I began having symptoms of gluten intolerance. You know, the usual stomach looking 6 months pregannt, falling asleep at work after a full nights sleep, numb/tingly hands and feet. My maternal aunt and mom both have undiagnosed celiac, so I followed suit and cut out all gluten and dairy. I felt so much better and all of my symptoms went away completely. Fast forward to early days of my pregancy, i began to have dreams of eating bread. Now, I like to think I was given the spiritual gift of discernment, but I will say this maybe was not my best moment - I started eating gluten again. But to my surprise, I experienced none of the symptoms I used to have. In fact, I had no symptoms at all. I had read somewhere at some point that your body does a "reset" about every 7 years (probably so not true in the slightest) and attributed the change to that or simply the pregnancy. Let's face it, some things that happen to a womans body during pregnancy just cannot be explained - by medicine or otherwise.

One day after getting sick,

I remember standing in my bathroom in tears because I was so miserable. I heard a voice as clear as if someone stood right infront of me that said "something is not right". The human body is truly such an amazing specimin, it knows and expresses more than we can even begin to articulate ourselves. To this day, I believe this to be the moment things drastically shifted within my body. I was taken aback by this because of what I had just heard, and my mind immediately went to the baby. Was something wrong? Would they be okay?

A few gruelling weeks later,

We went to a friends destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta and I was feeling 100x better and continued eating gluten. When we got back, I had my 20 week blood draw with my midwife. My platelets came back at 100,000. For those of you readers who aren't familiar with normal ranges for cell lines, platelets should be anywhere from 150,000-300,000. During the second trimester, it is not uncommon for platelets to drop and then bounce right back, this is what happened during my first preganncy. So my midwife wasn't too concerned, but reccommended a blood builder infusion to drink 3x per day along with iron. When it was time to get repeat labs, my platelets were at ~ 90,000. My midwife advised me that if they were not above 90,000 at time of labor they would not be able to deliver me and I would need to transfer care to a hospital (I had a planned home birth). I was devastated. This began a long road of mourning the many plans I had in life that I could no longer achieve because of this disease. They did repeat labs again a few weeks later and my platelets were at 73,000. I was referred to Maternal Fetal Medicine to check me and the baby and they advised everything with the baby looked good, the only issues they saw were my blood levels. I continued seeing my midwife and established care with a hematologist to monitor my levels.

You may have guessed,

Things did not get better, only worse. I began having weekly lab draws and we watched my numbers decline week by week. I was slightly anemic, but just under the normal range which can be common during preganncy so my hematologist ordered an iron transfusion, b12 shot and IVIG. Unfortunately after those treatments, things continued to get worse and at 36 weeks everything shifted, at this point my platelets were around 54,000. I had to transition care to an OB in a hospital, I called around to every major hospital in the Seattle area and a few of them told me flat out NOT to come to their facility because they weren't eqquipped to handle a situation where someone needs platelets. No OB would establish care with me because I was so far along, I was told i just needed to show up to the hospital when it was time. Until finally, I found 1 Dr. who would take me as a patient.

Intermission: The Cause?

My hematologist was baffled. She couldn't make sense of what was happening to me. At the time, she diagnosed me with Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), which is essentially when your immune system attacks your platelets (close, but not quite). What she couldn't understand was why my hemaglobin and hematocrit weren't coming up with the iron or B12 and why my MCV was so high (108).

Continued

The OB that ended up taking me suffered from ITP herself and was in remission after removal of her spleen, simply a God thing. I feel she sympathized with my situation and was willing to take me on as a patient. She suggested inducing me that week because delivering with platelets below 50,000 would be very dangerous. I was determined to not be induced as I understood the natural function of a women's body during birth and that with induction and intervention comes more intervention and stress on the baby and the body. With platelets at 50,000 you are not eligible for an epidural. But that wasn't my concern, I had planned a homebirth after all. If the domino effect of interventions took place and I wasn't progressing or the baby became distressed and a cesarean was needed, they would have to put me to under. I wouldn't get to see or hold my baby and them cutting me open with platelets at 50,000 would likely not have gone well.. By the grace of God, I went into labor that evening and delivered a healthy baby boy naturally. I did, however, hemmorhage and lost over 1/3 of my blood volume. The doctors were able to infuse platelets during birth so the bleeding eventually stopped.

Looking back on this photo is difficult. I was so in shock and hemorrhaging with several doctors attempting to stop the bleeding.

After the 2 day hospital stay, my platelets were at about 93,000. I went for labs again the following week and they had gone up to 111,000. There was less than a 2% chance the low platelets were gestational given they dropped below 50,000 and I thought I had proved to be the rarest of the rare. Turns out I was, just not in the way I thought.

This was just the beginning of a long road ahead.

I had labs again 3 months post partum and my levels were trending back down. My hemaglobin and hematocrit were also decreasing so my hematologist reccomeded a bone marrow biopsy.

I will end the story here for now.

I truly felt as if the Lord was giving me perspective during this time. That I had been too infatuated with my own plans and he wanted to humble me. That I would get my life back and be able to have more children, that everything would go back to normal and I would walk away with a valuable lesson. Today, I don't know what the future holds, but I can say that through all my experience during pregnancy - I became closer than ever before to my savior. I sought Him out in everything, everywhere, every decision and for the first time in my life I began reading my bible everyday. Actually learning His ways firsthand, instead of from a pew one day per week.

He brought me through it, He brought my son through it and I know that His plan for me is good.

Sincerely,

A Friend