Lovenox Makes Its Return

In order to preface the following, it is probably necessary to inform everyone that Cass and I are expecting again. While Cass was pregnant with Lexi, Cass was seeing a specialist for the difficulties that she has had during pregnancies. Near the end of the pregnancy, the doctor diagnosed Cass with Prothrombosis.

If you make an attempt to look up Prothrombosis, I wish you luck finding intelligable information. It is there, but you'd likely have to dig. For example, Prothrombosis is not listed in WebMD. To make it even more difficult, she's inflicted with an even more obscure subset that is defined as Prothrombosis Factor II.

Prothrombosis is a blood clotting disorder that is most commonly seen in people that have suffered significant trauma at sometime in their lives. Therefore, she could have been inflicted with the disorder after receiving burns as a result of a house fire when she was a child. There is also smaller chance that it is a genetic form of the disorder.

Regardless of the cause, the disorder does not seem to have an effect at any time other than during a pregnancy. There is a specific reason for this, the fragile filter that a baby uses to gather nutrition and oxygen from a mothers blood, the placenta, can easily become clogged with very small clots. This is probably the reason that Madi was actually losing weight during the end of that pregnancy and for Lexi being delivered a month early amid concerns of her becoming starved of oxygen or nutrition. During both of the pregnancies with the girls, there were minor placental abruptions where the placenta separates from the uterine wall.

During the pregnancy with Andrew, Cass began taking Lovenox, a blood thinner, very early in the pregnancy. Through the pregnancy, we took only two pre-term trips to the hospital. That may sound like a lot, but the girls each required several more than that. Although they wanted to deliver Drew early as well, it was merely precautionary due to the history of placental abruptions. From Cass's own words, the pregnancy with Drew was "much easier".

The pregnancy is now only a couple of weeks from completing the first trimester, she is starting the Lovenox later than with Drew, but the doctors have been pleased with the progress of the pregnancy to this point. Last night, I gave Cass her first injection of Lovenox for this pregnancy. I will be giving her an injection every night until about a week before the delivery.