I'm An Auntie Again (and the Pregnant with Sickle Cell Story)

my baby sister (really, I was just changing her diapers yesterday it seems as she is 15 years my junior) delivered her first child, A boy, yesterday!! A healthy 7 lbs 3 ounces. I can't STOP smiling this morning!

She had a very grueling and challenging pregnancy because she has sickle cell disease. For most of her life, the disease did not interrupt her life AT ALL. She had been blessed because we know of several people with the disease who have suffered horrible crises all their lives. Famous sickle cell patients include TBoz of the now-defunct top selling girl group TLC. An estimated 80,000 Americans are living with the disease which is common among black people. It is in my family because we are from Africa and in Africa, having the genetic blood cell mutation, which is what sickle cell anemia is, means that you can fight Malaria, an even worse disease that plagues tropical areas in Africa. It's a given that with two parents carrying a sickle cell trait (as with my parents) one in four children would be at risk of contracting the actual disease. Too bad for baby sister that she had to be that fourth child born to my carrier parents to prove that GENETICS are a fascinating thing and can very much come true!!!

Unfortunately however, one of the side effects of the disease, where it attacks organs and joints, is often triggered by certain conditions, one of them being PREGNANCY!! ACK!!

So, we (the family) have spent a better part of my sister's pregnancy taking her back and forth to the hospital. She has been admitted numerous times for long stints too. She's had blood transfusions and blood transfers. Toward the end, she even had to have a version (where they manually turn the baby from the outside to be head down) to increase the odds of her delivering vaginally. Surgery, for someone with a horrible blood disease would be the absolute worst thing. As the stars and charts would have it, we believe the version, which worked in record 5 minutes by the way, caused the cord to wrap around baby's neck. So last night, after being induced, the monitors showed that every time she had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would drop.

America, being the lawsuit conscious and of course out of natural concern for the well being and safety of the baby, she ended up getting a C-section anyway. So....we are blessed this Thanksgiving holiday season to be able to welcome a healthy baby into this world!!

Because my sister had this baby at a relatively very young age, compared to recent trends and not planned at all, she was just starting college, we are all counting our blessings and thanking God she was able to pull this off. Had she been older and perhaps in a better position financially and mature-wise, as we would have hoped, the flip side is she may not even had been able to carry the child to term. She may have had an even more difficult time coping because of a more advanced age. I say that because after doing some research, I've learned that women with Sickle Cell Disease have a difficult time getting pregnant, maintaining a pregnancy, carrying a child to term and when they do get pregnant are often saddled with the extra excruciating pains and pangs associated with the disease. Her body was literally attacking her on account of that foreign invading fetus she was carrying. Fortunately for me, just having the trait, I wasn't susceptible to that same kind of problems.

The National Institute for Health has an excellent Report on the management of the disease including an in depth section pregnancy that seems to be a worthwhile read. Luckily, there are studies and foundations working towards learning more about this hereditary blood disease.

All is well. I am very excited she is okay. I won't get into the fact that she used to complain about the hospital where she was treated until I reminded her that she could have given birth in our native Sierra Leone where these days 1 in 8 women DIE during childbirth! What a sobering reality check! She and we are blessed indeed!

stamp photo credit