#I wrote this real quick. really hoping I didn’t say anything stupid egsjgsjshd

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Not to be a big fat nerd but I’ve been thinking so much about Johanna’s relationship to a body she doesn’t understand growing up. Her medical records say her blood is O-, but that’s because it has none of the usual membrane proteins that would allow it to be classified into the ABO or the Rh systems; her ears are pointier than any other kid in her class’s, but that’s gotta be genetic, right? Like those genes that make it so the lobe is stuck or loose? But she can’t know, her auntie is the only family she has and she insists she doesn’t feel comfortable showing her ears, for some reason. Many of her classmates say they’re allergic to polen, but she doesn’t get it! How come, she only feels awesome when she’s in nature. She does feel her throat tighten sometimes, though, and her skin break out in rashes. But that’s only ever when she eats red meat (and beans, too, but only if she drinks orange juice along with it. It never made a lot of sense to her) or touched something with rust in it. She feels the most alert at dawn and dusk; thats kind of odd, most people her age feel groggy at school in the early mornings. But everyone has different circadian rhythms, she supposes.

She grows up, and gets pregnant; her obgyn is worried, her body is giving signs of rejecting the fetus, it’s producing antibodies against it. Johanna is horrified. Her aunt only chuckles and says her mother had something similar, she gives Johanna a homemade herbal tea and an amulet and all the symptoms disappear. The problem goes undiagnosed. They test the child’s blood,right after the c section (the pregnancy had been too freaky, the gynecologist didn’t want to risk a normal birth). Her results came back O- as well, but how is this possible? The father is an AB+, after all. Doesn’t matter. It’s not the doctor’s business if she’s cheating — but it is their business if the baby’s blood test was mistaken and the Rh- mother came into contact with Rh+ blood. That’s what they say when they connect a bag of anti Rh+ antibodies to her IV access. Better to be safe than to risk fetal erythroblastosis next time she has a kid. They explain this to her, and it makes no sense — she isn’t cheating. But the doctors don’t seem to be willing to listen to her, just like they aren’t willing to believe that blue hair runs in the family. They call the hospital’s social worker to talk to her; maybe she’s drunk, maybe there’s a reason she lies so much. She walks away from that hospital angry and frustrated.

Her daughter doesn’t have her pointy ears. But the allergy to iron, she seems to have inherited. She just hid it better, behind the explanation of a vegan diet. Neither of them ever suffered from the low blood iron. No blood test ever says her daughter is Rh positive, but she knows Anders’ was, she knows it. Is that even possible? She looks it up, finds out it is, actually, if he was a heterozygous positive. But nothing justifies her being O, it should have been A or B. Has Johanna done that herself? Single-handedly bent the actual rules of genetics and made it so it’d be harder for her daughter to get blood, should she ever need it? Sounds unlikely, but it’s not, really, right? Many people have O- blood. And autoimmune conditions. And allergy to iron. It’s normal. It’s all normal. She isn’t special. She’s not in danger. But isn’t there something you’re forgetting? Isn’t there something you’re forgetting? Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?