A Molly Story Part Two~ An episode of Grey's???

While at my first doctor's appointment, about week 8, my doctor suggested I go ahead and do my yearly exam. When the results came back that next week they were positive for pre-cancerous cells. This isn't the first time that this has happened but because of the changes caused by the pregnancy the doctor wanted to be very cautious. I needed a biopsy but we had to wait until the pregnancy was far enough along that it wouldn't harm the baby. At week 18 Rustin and I went for our gender sonogram followed by my biopsy. My results came back and Dr. S said we were in the clear for now and we'd do another biopsy at week 28. Once we got the all clear from the doctor we finally felt like we could be excited about our baby girl. We started thinking about names, and other baby related things we had been blocking out until we knew for sure we would both make it through this pregnancy. It was such an awesome feeling to know we were both healthy and share the news with the rest of our friends and family.



We continued on our pregnancy journey thinking we were in the clear until I got a call from my doctors office about week 30. My bloodwork was coming back with some odd abnormalities (I know that sounds redundant). Dr. S was sending me to meet with an oncologist. The first thing that went through my mind was "Oh great! How many cancer scares does one pregnancy need." After running the gamut on 9 vials of blood I was diagnosed with cold agglutinin disease. Which basically means that my red blood cells attack other red blood cells for no reason, and clots really funny when I get cold. Dr. B said that as long as I'm not symptomatic Molly and I should both be fine. The only thing to be concerned about is delivery. So I called both my brothers & my mom since we have the same blood type and lined up donors for a transfusion. (Hopefully we won't need it~especially since Joe is CRAZY afraid of needles but we have it just in case)

We made it to week 37 with no more crazy health issues. That's when Molly decided to invoke her right not to turn. After an unexpected sonogram we found that she's folded like a "c" with her butt where her head should be.
(I'm amazed that before she fit in the frame with room to spare and now only her face fits)

Dr. S and I worked out a plan. We gave her 8 days to turn on her own, and scheduled a ECV to try and turn her in case she decided to be stubborn and didn't. Dr. S said there's a 50/50 chance the ECV would work, and if it didn't we'd schedule a c-section for the following week. I really, really, really, didn't want to have a c section so during those 8 days I tried everything I'd read about trying to turn a breech baby. I held a bag of frozen Okra underneath my boobs trying to get her to move away from the cold. I tried music and a heating pad trying to get her to move toward them. I even tried laying with my pelvis 12 inches off the ground and pinching my pinky toes with clothespins. At my next doctor's appointment we had another sonogram and low and behold she hadn't moved. So the ECV would go on as scheduled. The Dr. was pretty confident that the ECV would work.

The whole pregnancy wasn't all scary and grim. There were a LOT of wonderful moments! Like working with Rustin on the nursery, celebrating Rustin's first Father's Day, and all the fun baby showers. All in all we're thankful that we've been blessed with "best case senerios".