What happened to Levi?

So I know many of you are wondering what exactly was wrong with Levi.  We had this question for several days.  I will start with what they thought was wrong from the very beginning and go from there.

When Levi was born, he was very very white.  As white as a piece of paper.  I have some pictures of the delivery, but they are too disturbing to put on the blog.  Dr. Harris kept saying he was anemic.  He wasn’t breathing and he was very very weak.

When Dr. Greer got to look at him, he discovered that his hematocrit (the number of red blood cells in your blood) was a 10.  Your hematocrit when you are born is supposed to be around 40 depending on sex and a couple of other variables.  So Levi’s hematocrit was only 1/4 of the volume it should have been.  Basically he only had 1/4 of the amount of blood in his body he needed which was why he was so white when he was born.  So Dr. Greer had to quickly get Levi stable.  They had problems getting an IV in him because he was so dehydrated and his veins were dry. 

Dr. Greer also discovered that his white blood cells were high which meant they thought he had an infection.  They did a spinal tap to rule out meningitis.  He also gave him a blood transfusion.

They life flighted Levi to UAB in Birmingham.  When he arrived his hematocrit was a 12.  One of the nurses told Matt that a 12 was the lowest she had ever seen.  They got him stable and gave him another blood transfusion.

My placenta had been sent off to labs to look for abnormalities.  The doctors initially thought that there was a tear/hole in the placenta that allowed bacteria into Levi.  The doctor at UAB quickly came to realize that if there had been a tear in the placenta, there would have been blood everywhere during surgery, and that was not mentioned in the surgery report.  They also ran multiple tests on Levi to rule out infections.

Because I was in the hospital in Opelika, it was very hard for me to understand what was going on.  A lot of testing and a lot of guessing which ruled out several ideas.  Finally the doctor decided to test my blood.  When they looked at my blood, they saw a ton of “boy” cells in my blood.  Which meant that I had a ton of Levi’s blood inside of me.

Because there was no tear in the placenta, this meant that somehow I was “stealing” Levi’s blood.  What had happened was that in the placenta, my veins and Levi’s veins overlap without touching.  There was a malfunction which allowed our veins to touch.  I started pulling Levi’s blood into me which made him lose all his blood.

The doctor said that there was nothing that I could have done to make this happen.  It just happens.  Usually the babies die because it is not discovered in time.  It really was down to a matter of hours to save Levi’s life.  That is why he stopped moving.  He was so weak from not having enough blood.

As far as the infection, he did not have one that we know of.  His white blood count was high because he was in distress.  He was treated with antibiotics at UAB, but all the tests came back negative.

I know that I don’t understand all that happened, but I do know that we are very blessed to have Levi here and alive.  The doctor at UAB assured us that it probably wouldn’t happen again if we wanted to have more children.  I am still so scared and paranoid that something is going to happen to Levi, that I don’t see us having any more children. 

Thanks again for all the prayers, flowers, gifts, cards, money, visits, etc.