It seems that this concept of knowing your Genotype was heavily promoted in Nigeria 'cos I've met a whole bunch of people in this US of A, and when I randomly ask them...'do you know your blood Genotype?', I get a whole bunch of blank stares. It's especially interesting to note that the folk who are getting married in this day and age are equally just as clueless about this one, which I find quite surprising.
Just in case you don't know anything about your blood Genotype, make I edumacate una small small...abeg take am easy o, I no be dokita or Biology major.
If your GT is AA: You are pretty much set. You can marry an AA and your kids will all be AA, You can marry an AS and there is a % chance (not to sure the exact figure) that some of your kids will have the AS GT or you can even marry SS sef and your kids will have the AS blood type (worst case scenario).
If your GT is AS: You don't have it that easy. If you get married to an AS man/woman, there is a % chance as well that one or more of your kids will have the SS blood GT (worst case scenario), or the AS blood GT (best case scenario). So if you have 4 kids, 3 of 'em might be AS and one might be SS.
And, if your GT is SS: I advise you to just stick to trying to get with an AA individual or if you meet a fellow SS or AS man/woman of your dreams...you might just wanna consider adopting kids.
I hope that I have managed to convince and not confuse any of una. Anyone who has better knowledge of this kini should please feel free to pick holes in my 'edumacation' and show them the way o jare. No problem!
Soooo, ya girl's blood GenoType is AS and growing up, my ma always made sure to drum it into our heads...Whatever you do, do not marry an AS dude because you do not want to deal with the burden of having a child who has sickle cell (SS Blood GT). And so, armed with that word of advice, when I meet men...along with the preliminary 'Do you have a 401k plan' initial 20 questionnaire that I have prepped for them, I also ask them...'what is your blood GenoType?'... Ha!
I keed, I keed.
Actually, I never really paid much mind to asking men what their blood GT was 'cos true talk, I wasn't even thinking that far ahead but it all came back to me when I got older and I started dating this guy who I tentatively gisted my mom about. And being the forward thinking woman that she is, she asked me...'Do you know what his blood GT is?' and I said 'ummm...no'. But she gave me something to think about, and the very next day I asked him what his GT was and true talk, he aint know (he was born and raised here, wonder if that was a factor for not knowing). But that's another story for another day...or more like never. Ha!
This summer, I tagged along with my friend to ze Hospital. We went to see a mutual friend's brother who was admitted because he had a sickle cell episode (both parents are AS + she had an older brother who died from sickle cell complications, as well ). I tell you, seeing that ish up close and personal was not the business at all. The poor boy was hooked up to all kinds of tubes and was writhing around in SO much pain that by the time I walked out of that hospital, my eyes were wet with tears. It was truly humbling to see this with my own korokoro eyes, I mean...some people get problem for this world o. As a sickle cell child, there are so many restrictions on what one can do and those episodes occur every so often. Kai!
Sooo I did some thinking and I was like na wa o, as an AS babe I no wan carry sickle cell pikin na but does this mean that I have automatic grounds for NEXTING an AS candidate who wants to make me his baby mama? Nope. Like I mentioned, when AS meets AS and they make a baby, it's not going to be a 100% chance that the baby will be SS. Maybe baby # 1 will be AS and baby #2 will be AS but baby #3 just might be SS so errrm if you get 2 healthy babies, you fit end the discussion right there and adopt the rest. But on the flip side, baby #1 could be SS even if the other babies turn out to be AS so errmmm....
Also, if you are not anti-adoption, then sure you can marry whoever you want to marry without the fear that any of your children will have sickle cell blood type.
For someone like me who has this ridiculous ridiculous fear of childbirth, the intense pain (And all those episodes of 16 and pregnant aint helping matters), labor and the whole 9 yards...I am very pro adoption. If I met a man who said 'baby, let's adopt all the way', you don't even know how happy I would be. So ahem, if I met an AS man who said something along the lines of...'Let's not even risk having an SS kid, so let's adopt all our kiddies', I would give him a big fat kiss and say YAY. LOL...
I mean, I always say that it's already hard enough to meet a correct individual that you want to spend the rest of your life with. You gotta factor in 'family history', education, religion, if you're Igbo the fact that he/she is Osu could be a HUGE no-no, then you gotta think about Blood GenoType too? e no easy sha o!
Ah wellz. This ends my PSA for the day. Go home and ask your lovers if they know what their blood GT is. Let's edumacate ourselves on this kini!
