Why am I so PASSIONATE about cord blood banking?
Why do you do what you do? What made you start you mission about educating the masses about cord blood banking and stem cells? What motivates you to share, post, repost, and blog every story you find about cord blood and stem cells? Why? Why? Why?
I get these questions a lot and I thought I would take a moment to tell you about myself and why I do what I do.
My story is one that comes from being the parent of two children and having two separate experiences with the world of cord blood banking. 3 years ago my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child. We were absolutely overjoyed and also extremely nervous. Like the majority of all first time parents, we were inundated with all of the "must do's" and "do not's" that come with expecting your first child. I had never heard of cord blood banking and the only thing I knew about stem cells were they came from embryos. I had no idea about the whole other side of the coin called adult stem cells that can be collected from many various places such as adipose tissues and umbilical cord blood.
I remember the day that my wife and mother-in-law handed me a brochure they had received from our OB/GYN's office about privately banking your baby's cord blood. At the time, I didn't realize that I would one day in the future look upon that moment as a life changing moment but I will get to that a little later. I glanced over the brochure swiftly and went straight to the cost portion. Of course that was a big swaying factor as we are already buying cribs, car seats, clothes, etc. Thousands of dollars being spent in preparation of the big day to come. I saw the cost and immediately said, "this sounds like a luxury that we just can't afford at this time!" How could I justify the costs with so many other "necessities" we had to purchase? So i took the brochure and just stuffed it away and didn't look at it again and didn't do anymore research about the company.
Fast forward a few months and my wife was put on strict bedrest due to complications she was having at the time. Scary stuff! Around that time I was approached by both sides of our family to look into cord blood banking again. I dug around and found the brochure and began to read more in-depth about how this could be beneficial. My eyes began to open on not so much the present value that cord blood stem cells had but the future. Treatments and therapies using cord blood stem cells were growing and milestones once thought to be a pipe dream were in fact becoming a reality. My eyes were opened wide and I remember vividly saying "this sounds like a great investment for our child but we still cannot afford it." Luckily we were fortunate to have our family members pay the initial costs and we got our kit in the mail a few days later.
The big day is finally here now. We are checked into the hospital with our kit in hand and my wife ready to bless me with a son or daughter (we didn't find out the sex before hand even though I wanted to know so bad but was the GREATEST SURPRISE OF MY LIFE). Induction started and though moving slowly, things were going as planned. I walked outside to grab a cold drink and when I went back to our hospital room, all hell was breaking loose. Nurses and doctors had multiplied, alarms were going off everywhere, my family were all sitting with blank stares. I thought I had walked into the wrong room. " What's happening, what's wrong?" is all I could say. My wife's blood pressure was skyrocketing, our child's heart rate was plummeting, my wife was hooked into oxygen and nurses were scrambling around. My heart skipped a beat. Our OB/GYN came in and said, "get her to delivery IMMEDIATELY, we are taking the child NOW!!!"
We got back to the delivery room and they started doing a C-Section and trying to stabilize my wife's blood pressure. It was almost surreal. Then time stopped as I heard the doctor utter these 3 words...... IT'S A BOY!!! We waited anxiously as they finished the delivery and even though we had the complications, they were able to do a successful collection. About 20 minutes later we were back in our room staring at the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on, our son. He was so tiny for a full term baby but I didn't think anything of it at the time, all that mattered was they were both okay. And sure enough the medical courier showed up a couple hours later to retrieve my son's cord blood collection. A long and stressful day but one that I will never forget. After a few days in the hospital we would be off to our house to start a new chapter in our lives.
It wasn't until the next day after my son was born that my wife explained to me what had happened before and during delivery. She knew I was already a bundle of nerves to start. "What happened, why did we have to do an emergency section?" This was the question I had. She calmly answered that the umbilical cord was wrapped around our son's neck and that the cord was not properly attached on her end. This was why he was so small as he was not getting the right amount of nourishment but just enough not to raise any major alarms beforehand. When they started inducing labor, he was get strangled for lack of a better word and the stress was what was affecting my wife's heart and blood pressure. I could have lost both of them had they kept on going on with the induction instead of performing the emergency C-section. Talk about I felt like I had been hit by a locomotive, I was speechless. I began thinking would this affect his health, would there be any significant problems, my mind was just racing 90 to nothing. At that moment, I was so fortunate that my family made me go ahead and bank his cord blood. Could it be used for any problems if they arose? Maybe or maybe not, but knowing that it was there just in case was a great feeling. I had done the right thing to do everything in my power to have every tool available for him if the need were to arise.
Fast forward 10 moths later. I came home right before Halloween and my wife looked at me and hit me with another 3 word phrase that would change my life. "We are pregnant!" It was about 15 minutes of silence and blank stares at each other. The first thing that popped in my mind was our experience with our son's delivery and all the complications. I had almost lost both of them, what if history were to repeat itself and this time the outcome was not the same? I was more nervous than overjoyed but that would soon subside as the last 10 months had been so amazing, I just had to pray that we would not go through that experience again. Still fresh in my mind was that we had banked with our first so I knew that doing it for our second child would be a priority, regardless the circumstances.
By that summer I had begun doing more and more research about cord blood banking and was intrigued by the powers these little cord good stem cells possess. I had researched a few different private banking companies to see what services they offered. When we went for one of our appointments when my wife was about 5 months pregnant, we asked her doctor about cord blood banking and what his recommendations or thoughts were. I remember his answer as if it were yesterday. "I think that it is a great service and holds a lot of potential for the future so if you can afford to do it, by all means I would." When we asked if he had any literature, he said, "actually we have just a few brochures, I had to call one of the companies personally just to get some kind of literature to give to parents, no one markets or even makes parents aware that this is an available service." At that moment, I realized that I had an opportunity of a lifetime. From that day forward, it became my goal to make sure that I could tell every expecting parent possible that cord blood banking is something that is beneficial and potentially a life-saving decision. A spark was ignited and my flame has burned brighter every day since.
I was fortunate enough to have been talking to one of the companies I was researching about getting more material to learn more about the whole industry. After telling them my experience, they put some materials in our doctor's office so other parents can make an educated and informed decision. I was so impressed by their willingness to educate families and their customer service that we decided to bank our second child's cord blood with them. The experience was so great that I recommend to any parent or interested family to give them a call first when deciding on whether or not private cord blood banking is for them. That was approximately 20 moths ago and I have never looked back.
So delivery day came with our second child and though nervous a little, our pregnancy this go around had been much smoother. We arrived at the hospital with kit in hand and the doctors decided to go ahead and do another section because of the previous problems with our first just to err on the side of caution. Again we did not know what we were having and that summer afternoon, I was blessed with a little girl. The doctors did the collection and even said, "we were able to collect more cord blood with this kit than with others we had used." The courier showed up on time and we got a confirmation early the next day that our sample had arrived, been processed, and was now sitting at 196 degrees below zero. I cannot stress enough how satisfied we were with the customer service, nothing against our first company but this one went above and beyond to make the whole process run smooth.
So where am I now? I am a proud father of two wonderful kids and I have the pleasure of being able to devote some of my time to promote education and awareness about cord blood banking to as many people possible. It started just as word of mouth to friends and family and has ballooned into 8 different social media platforms, over 50 individual pages on Facebook, 3 blogs, and a fully functional website. It's quite a task to keep up with all this "social media" but when it is something you are PASSIONATE about, the work part of it is extremely enjoyable. I love talking to families about my story. My knowledge and drive to educate has turned me into exactly what my Twitter name is to my local community, MrCordBlood. What a great distinction to have and I wear it proudly. I have spoken at various hospitals, chamber of commerce meetings, benefits for sick children, and even had the pleasure of being invited to houses of families interested in learning more about cord blood banking to speak about my knowledge and insight into the industry.
So now that I have shared a little history behind what caused me to be in the position I am in now, what does the future hold? Well all I can say is a WHOLE LOT MORE if I have anything to say about it. I have learned a significant amount in the roughly 3 years that I have been researching the industry. I have shaken hands with CEO's of major cord blood banks, walked state capitol's with lobbyists and staff, spoken to elected senators and representatives about my cause, met with the highest ranking officials within the state on the imperative issue of establishing readily available information to expecting mothers and the dire need to promote awareness to the masses, and just recently I was able to play a small part in potentially changing a very courageous young girl's life by introducing myself and now she is slated for both an umbilical cord blood transplant and a placental stem cell transplant with an 85% success rate given to her by her team of physicians. Sounds like a lot to do in a short time but my aspirations are MUCH BIGGER.
As long as families will listen and readers will visit and read what I write on this blog, I will type away and continue this journey till my heart stops beating. If one life can change because of what I do, then every minute of this is WELL WORTH IT! I love educating families about cord blood banking and I hope that those who read this will find some form of inspiration to share with others so I may tell my story to them. Thank you all for your support and the BEST IS YET TO COME!!
Best Regards,
MrCordBlood
