A Trip to Children's Hospital

Well, since baby is sleeping and the big girls are playing, I can write about what happened last night.

Yesterday afternoon, I took Christian back to the doctor for another platelet/bili/ weight check. They took his blood like always and the doctor said he would call me later with the results.

About 4:30 the phone rang and it was our doctor. He sounded very concerned, he said there was a huge change in Christian's platelet count, they had dropped from 160,000 to 89,000. This was very odd because they were going up the last few days.

He said he had already called Children's Hospital and they were waiting for us. I think he didn't know why the platelets had dropped so dramatically and that is why he wanted us to go to the hospital, he said the hospital would get ahold of a hematologist and would figure this out. He said to get up there as soon as we could.

Luckily, Matt's mom was here helping out and she just stayed with the girls. I packed an overnight bag because our doctor thought we would be there at least a night. I also packed Christian up some stuff and off we went to the hospital. And yes, I am an emotional wreck during all this!!

We got to Children's and checked in, the lady took us up to our room on the 4th floor. She showed us around and soon a resident came in and talked to us. We told her the whole situation of Christian's platelets and how they had suddenly fallen today.

We also explained that I have a mild case of ITP, which is chronic low blood platelets. I have built up an antibody that attacks my own blood platelets. When this happens, my body cannot rebuild my platelets fast enough to keep my numbers up. I explained that I probably always have had ITP, but didn't get diagnosed until October 2008. They watched me carefully during my pregnancy and my platelets never got low enough to do anything. They were even fine at delivery.

She took this all in and then seemed very confused and said, "I wonder why you are even here, 89,000 is not that low." Wow! That is great news, but then why are we here? We talked about how they had dropped so low (because that is what our doctor was worried about) and she said that with moms with ITP, the antibodies pass through the placenta and then cause the baby to have low platelets for about the first week until the baby gets rid of the antibodies. She said they usually get to the lowest point about days 2-5 and that could've been exactly what happened. Wow-what great news!

The next person that came in was the head pediatrician for the floor. The resident explained everything to her and she said they were on phone with a hematologist deciding what to do. She was at the same conclusion, 89,000 was not so bad. She said they wouldn't do a platelet transplant unless they were under 20,000 and even then, my antibodies would attack those new platelets, so we might as well let it run its course. Music to my ears!

They then sent in pathology to take another complete blood count (CBC) just to double check the count. They took it and while I was downstairs getting dinner, the pediatrician came back with the results.

Platelet count- 139,000

What? That is much higher than it was before! Well, it turns out that they were probably never low to start with. The doctor thought that when they drew his blood in the afternoon, a blood clot had developed and all the platelets went to the blood clot and caused a false number. Nice!






Christian was fine and we were free to go home! After a 3 hour stay at Children's Hospital, we are very thankful that it turned out to be nothing, but yet thankful that the doctors made the call that they did!

We did get a $4 meal for me, a package of diapers and wipes out of the deal...but who knows how much a 3 hour stay at Children's cost...it doesn't matter because we've already hit our deductible and everything after that is covered 100%!

I just wish the doctor would've said, "Why don't you come in for another CBC and we can double check his numbers?" Instead of running off to Children's Hospital. Or even if the hospital would've taken a CBC before checking us into a room...we can't question what happened, because we need to trust our doctor, especially since Christian is only 6 days old. Hopefully they will only continue to go up from here!


We were home by 9 and were able to put our children to bed and sleep in our own beds last night, I'm very thankful because I really didn't want to spend the night at a hospital!! The girls were really glad when we brought their brother back home. When we left, Megan seemed really concerned and both kept saying, "one more kiss for brother" as we were walking out the door! They really adore him!! I think he's a keeper!