I still do because it was an eventful day for sure.
The year was 1991 and I was in Primary 6. We had the people from either the clinic or the NRIC office come to the school to accept our application forms and to check what blood group we belonged to so it could be recorded on our ID cards.
We waited in line like prisoners for our turn to get our fingers pricked. The part that made this whole day eventful for me was when it finally came to be my turn. The lady poked my finger the first time, took a drop of blood and started testing it to find out which blood group I belonged to. She seemed a little confused and decided to poke my finger again. She must have done this about three or four times before asking me if I am Chinese. Only when I told her I am mixed Eurasian did she stop poking my finger because the A- blood group she's been getting finally explained why I had that blood type.
So yeh, my blood type is A- and apparently from that lady's reaction, only Eurasians and Caucasians have that blood group. But it never hit me at how rare it was until I got pregnant with my first child.
It caused so much complications that my pregnancy was placed under the high risk pregnancy unit.
Apparently i was carrying a foetus with a blood type different from my own, and I could have formed antibodies against foetal RBCs. Sometimes these maternal antibodies are IgG, a small immunoglobulin, which can cross the placenta and cause hemolysis of fetal RBCs, which in turn can lead to hemolytic disease of the newborn called erythroblastosis fetalis, an illness of low foetal blood counts that ranges from mild to severe. Sometimes this is lethal for the foetus.
Among these antibodies are some which attack the red blood cells in the fetal circulation; the red cells are broken down and the baby can develop reticulocytosis and anaemia. This disease ranges from mild to very severe, and death from heart failure (hydrops fetalis) can occur.
Hemolysis leads to elevated bilirubin levels. After delivery bilirubin is no longer cleared (via the placenta) from the neonate's blood and the symptoms of jaundice (yellowish skin and yellow discoloration of the whites of the eyes) increase within 24 hours after birth. Like any other severe neonatal jaundice, there is the possibility of acute or chronic kernicterus. Profound anaemia can cause high-output heart failure, with pallor, enlarged liver and/or spleen, generalized swelling, and respiratory distress. The prenatal manifestations are known as hydrops fetalis; in severe forms this can include petechiae and purpura. The infant may be stillborn or die shortly after birth.
Unfortunately both my kids didn't have my blood type and thus why they were both under high risk pregnancies. After they were both, they were in the NICU for a week. It was heart breaking to see what they had to go through but thankfully, everything is good now.
The treatment for this?
Before birth, options for treatment include intrauterine transfusion or early induction of labour when pulmonary maturity has been attained, or 35 to 37 weeks of gestation have passed. The mother may also undergo plasma exchange to reduce the circulating levels of antibody by as much as 75%.
My doctors didn't see the need for this while I was pregnant so for both my kids, the treatment was for after my babies were born.
After birth, treatment depends on the severity of the condition, but could include temperature stabilization and monitoring, phototherapy, transfusion with compatible packed red blood, exchange transfusion with a blood type compatible with both the infant and the mother, sodium bicarbonate for correction of acidosis and/or assisted ventilation.
Both of my kids had temperature stabilization and monitoring and phototherapy. Thankfully no transfusions were needed although my son came close to it.
You should see the nurses and doctors panic when they realized what my blood type was. They were calling blood banks to have bags of A- blood on standby. It kind of felt nice to feel that important. Haha.
So you see, I'm a gem. A rare gem. Haha.
But seriously, my blood type (A-) is the 4th rarest in the world.
7% Caucasians
2% African American
2% Hispanic
0.5% Asian
It's one thing to be rare but it's another when it concerns your health and your life and worse when it’s the life of your own children.
I am thankful that even if my kids had a rough week or so after birth, they are healthy and smart and perfect now.
On a different note, I am also thrilled to mention that I received a DM (direct message) from Jonahan Knight on Twitter today... woohoooo....
