A B AB...

I have an "Irrational-Fear" confession to make.

My blood type is O-negative.

My doctor told me this at my OBGYN appointment last week. This means that they absolutely need to know Greg's blood type as soon as possible because if he is Something-positive, that means that my body could decide that the baby I'm carrying is an evil interloper and make a move to eradicate it from my system. Then again, the problem is not so much with THIS baby, it would be with the NEXT baby. It's sort of a fool-me-once/fool-me-twice system.

The funny part of my story pertains to telling my parents that I am O-negative, and finding out that they are O-positive and B-positive. They came up with three theories. Either it is possible for two RH-positive parents to produce a RH-negative child, My doctor did the blood test wrong on me, or Mom was fooling around. They asked me to figure it out and kindly get back to them as soon as possible.

Turns out that it is possible for two RH-positive parents to produce an RH-negative baby - it's just not that common.

The Not-so-funny part of my story is why exactly I'm afraid of being O-negative and into my childbearing years with a most-likely Something-positive husband. In reality, they have a shot for people like me. At 28 weeks along I'll get a shot (in the hip or in the butt, I can't find conclusively - Gosh I hope it's the butt), and when I give birth I'll get another shot. If I ever suffer even mild trauma (car accident, tripping and falling) I should probably go to the Doctor and tell them I'm O-negative, and they'll give me a shot just in case. This shot prevents my body from being able to form antibodies to ward off future fetuses. It reduces my chances of experiencing the baby-as-evil-interloper scenario to a teensy tiny 1%.

But that's exactly what happened to my Grandmother.

Granted, she was giving birth at a time when they DID NOT have this shot. But if you want to get technical, my Dad is the oldest of 10, not 8. Except that the two babies born 2nd and 3rd were both stillborn because of the RH-Factor issues.

In 25 years I have only seen my father cry 3 times. Once was in the telling of what it was like for my mother to miscarry twice before successfully carrying me to term. My Grandmother carried two babies to term that did not survive past their delivery. I can not even imagine the pain. The story of those two babies has always been the most real horror story of my life - though it's never really discussed and I'm not even sure how I know about it.

It never occurred to me that I could be at risk for the same thing.

And it didn't help yesterday, when I had a private freak out moment at around 5:30 pm (on a Sunday), that Greg couldn't IMMEDIATELY tell me exactly what blood type he was. Somehow. Don't ask me how. I just wanted him to figure it out. Right away. Now.

So my gem of a husband is, today, calling blood banks to find out if they would please PLEASE accept a pint of his blood if they will only tell him his blood type so that his crazy pregnant wife can pick a new focus for the insanity.