Lack o' Platelets

No, these are not red lifesavers- they are red blood cells, and the little yellow balls are blood platelets-apparently my body doesn't have enough of them.  Probably about 6 weeks ago my doctor told me the normal level is 150-200 and I was at 136.  Because platelet levels often decrease during pregnancy she wasn't too worried, but had my blood drawn again just to make sure.  The results came back as 128.  Still, it seemed like they were pretty stable, but just to be on the cautious side she had blood drawn again this week.  In 3 weeks I went from 128 to 102- eh, not good.  When you hit below 100 they can't give you an epidural.  The absolute lowest you can be for any kind of anesthesia is an 80, and with almost 5 weeks left in my pregnancy things aren't looking too good.

The thought of not getting an epidural flat out terrifies me (I had a lovely experience with Petosin kicking in before they could get me an epidural when I was in labor with Nathan and let's just say I NEVER want to go through that again).  I told Joel that the baby's not allowed to come out unless there are pain meds involved.  However, the bleak truth is that even if I were into the whole natural birth thing, if something were to go wrong with labor they wouldn't be able to do any anethesia for a C-Section, and there are some concerns about my blood not clotting properly and me bleeding out.

So what's the next step you say?  I'm headed back in for more blood work right away this afternoon and then they scheduled me to go see a Hematologist on Monday.  You can tell my OB is worried about it, because they got me an emergency appointment.  We'll see what the Hematologist has to say- my OB had mentioned the possibility of some type of steroids to try to help it, but I really don't have any idea what's going to happen.  Keep your fingers crossed.