You're Putting That Needle WHERE?

Hey tiny baby, would you mind telling me your blood type? How about a kick on the left means your blood is positive, and a kick on the right means your blood is negative – like mine!

Everyone’s blood is one of the four main types – A, B,O, or AB. Things get confusing because one also has to know if they have a certain type of protein on the surface of their red blood cells (known as the Rh factor.) If you have the Rh factor, you are Rh-positive. If you don’t, you’d be negative, like myself.

Having O negative blood is largely a blessing. You have the ability to save many lives because O negative blood can be donated to anyone. Thus, it is widely referred to as the universal donor. There is, however, one problem…

I. Hate. Needles.

If my tiny baby is Rh-positive, then I may develop antibodies that could harm my baby. Internal forces could be warring against my adorable son, without me even knowing it. Let alone without my consent. I mean seriously, what the heck is my body? SKYNET?

To stop my T-1000 antibody troops before they start their Blitz-Krieg warfare on my baby (special thanks to my history nerd husband for that historical reference), I need a RhoGAM shot.

This shot is literally a pain in the butt – because the needle goes straight into your booty. The shot is large, and painful, and I’ll need to have it a couple of times throughout my pregnancy. My first one will be administered next week. I wish I could tell you what is in the RhoGAM shot, how it stops the little Arnold looking terminators from killing my John Connor baby, but I can’t. I’m not smart enough to figure it out, and to be honest I am terrified of it. And you’re thinking what I’m thinking as I write this, no, my belly button freaks me out more. I know, right?

But, a-ha, there is a slight chance that I may be in the clear. If my hubby’s blood is Rh-negative like me, our baby will be Rh-negative! That means that I will not need to get the booty shot. SKYNET be damned. Eighty five percent of people, however, are Rh-positive, which means I will most likely be needing the horrible RhoGAM. Think: Arnold coming back in T2 to defeat the weird silvery goupy guy that took over David Duchovny’s spot on the X-files when the X-files started to suck. Woah, brain cramp.