Drinkin' Champagne, Feelin' No Pain

I have only told a handful of people, since the situation only became a situation recently... but even prior to getting pregnant, my blood platelets levels have been lower than the norm. Not a big deal though because I have never had any symptoms of low blood platelets (bloody nose, bruising easily, etc). It is very possible to have low blood platelets and function completely normally. The only problem is with pregnancy the blood platelet level may drop more than usual, which is exactly what happened to me a couple weeks ago. My ob/gyn called to let me know they had dropped from the 120-ish range to 85 (ideal being 145+) at my last appointment. Not happy. See, the problem is... when blood platelets drop below 100 then the ob/gyn group I see will not administer an epidural! As in -- you're going to be delivering the natural way!  

AHHHHHH!!!

Now I know epidurals have not been around forever and bazillions of women before me have delivered naturally -- some even CHOOSE to do so today. I on the other hand would rather be feelin' no pain. 

As a result of the drop to 85 my ob/gyn referred me to a hematologist, who Matt and I met with today. Good news! Blood platelets are back up and higher than they were before. Now in the 130-ish range. The hematologist was really great and she said there is absolutely no cause for concern at this time. She recommended that we continue to draw blood to check the platelet count every 4 weeks for the next 8 weeks then after 8 weeks we will determine whether I should be back in the office having my blood drawn weekly or bi-weekly leading up to D-Day. Such a relief because already I was stressing out thinking... now I need to find one of these ladies called a doula and take natural birth classes and see a specialist more often... but for now, I am in the clear and I am definitely crossing my fingers that everything remains status quo. 

I'll leave you with my theme song for (hopefully) DELIVERY DAY as sung by one of my absolute favorites -- Willie Nelson. The title of the song being more appropriate than the actual context of the song.