In Which I Speak of Titers

Last week, I went in for a regular ob check and ultrasound, and while I was there I had my blood drawn for my monthly antibody test. Tuesday I received a call from the lab informing me that unfortunately they had sent my blood in for a jak test rather than a jka test and I needed to come back in. Though I was slightly miffed, a dear friend reminded me that this was a very easy mistake to have made, so I sucked it up and my mom drove me back to the hospital on Thursday.

Yesterday I received a phone call from my obstetrician's office informing me that my antibody titers had gone up to 1:4.

This is still in the safe zone, and the baby won't have life-threatening complications from the current level of antibodies in my blood. However, every time the titers go up, they double, so the next place they could go to is 1:8.

1:8 is in the danger zone.

Now, the titers may never go there. I may stay at 1:4 until November and there will be nothing to worry about except for some jaundice to deal with when the baby is born.


If the numbers do go up next month, from what I understand, we'll be looking at two possibilities:

1. The baby will receive blood transfusions while he or she is still in utero.

2. If I am far enough along, it will be safer to deliver the baby and treat him or her outside of me.


Since we have treatment options (and my titers aren't there yet), I'm not panicking. However, this does raise our anxiety level a small notch. Please pray for this little one. Pray that the titers remain at 1:4 for the rest of the pregnancy and that we make it safely to 36 weeks or beyond.

Thank you so very much for lifting us up--we would not be this far without our prayer warriors.