Last month I had a physical with Dr. Looove. I hadn’t had an exam since before I was pregnant with Maddie, so it was definitely time. It was good to see Dr. Looove. I was so used to seeing her at least once a month for Maddie’s check-ups, shots, etc. We talked about Maddie for 25 minutes before she even got to the exam.

Because my pregnancy had so many complications, Dr. Looove ordered more than the usual panel of tests. I had some major blood work – 14 vials of blood were taken that afternoon. Yeah, I practically needed a transfusion after the nurse was done. I will say, the nurse that took my blood was so amazingly gentle that I started to cry. I cried because she was always Maddie’s nurse. She didn’t hurt me, and I realized she never hurt Maddie. It was a relief.

I didn’t think much of the tests until Dr. Looove called me a few weeks later. Everything had come back normal except for one thing – I had an indicator in my blood that is common in clotting disorders. She’d run it because I’d had so many blood clots during Madeline’s pregnancy. Dr. Looove hypothesized that this could have been the reason Maddie was born eleven weeks early. She referred me to a hematologist, and that appointment was yesterday.

I was very nervous about the appointment, I barely slept the night before. Luckily, the hematologist immediately put us at ease. He went through my whole history and asked a zillion questions, examined me, and then poured over the test results. He was very interested in hearing all about my pregnancy with Maddie, and requested access to my pregnancy records. He is especially interested in the pathology results from Maddie’s placenta.

Dr. Blood (come on, you knew I was going to give him a nickname) doesn’t want to make a diagnosis until he reviews my pregnancy and gets new tests results (eight more vials of blood were taken, yay). But he said that I may have something called Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome. Basically, that means my body’s immune system “attacks” its own clotting mechanism.

Our biggest question after getting all this information was – should I have been tested for this when I was pregnant? My general practitioner thought to test for it, so it seems like something my obstetrician and THREE high-risk OBs would have thought to check for, too, right? Dr. Blood said, “well…” and his pause and the look on his face spoke volumes, “some doctors are not used to this sort of thing, and might not think that way…but with the presence of clots I would think that yes, you probably should have been tested.”

Oh good! I LOVE the Coulda/Woulda/Shoulda Game! Now with the exciting What If? Bonus Round!!!

So what does this mean? Well…there is still a lot of testing to be done. Like I mentioned, I had repeat labs run today, and they will be run again in eight weeks. Right now we just have to wait. My pregnancy records are being sent to Dr. Blood (my former OB is associated with a different hospital), and once he reviews them he’ll decide on the next step.

Until then, all we can do is wait and wonder.