I had my 36-week check-up yesterday. Thinning but not dilating...no progress from last week. Sounds familiar! I think I got to 1/2 cm with Liam up until the day we induced. You never know, though; you can go weeks and weeks at 3 cm with no action, or it can all happen right at once.
I feel a little better after talking to my doctor about the baby's positioning. She said the likelihood is pretty high that she'll turn during labor if she doesn't before. Otherwise, there isn't much to do but grin and bear it until then.
I have actually gotten a second wind here. The back pains were considerably better today, as I think she spent a lot of time in a better position. If I can keep feeling good, I would prefer to work through June 3 so I don't have to go back to work until after September begins. I know it's 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other if I'm taking the same amount of time off regardless, but for some reason, I just want to be off through August.
We went through the decision-making process with this baby as to whether or not we wanted to bank her cord blood. It's essentially like an expensive insurance policy with very little chance that it will ever be put to use. However, parenthood tends to change your outlook on things like that. With Liam, it really never crossed our minds. I didn't know much about it. I saw the little flyers up in the doctor's office, but it just never occurred to me to look into it.
I don't have any regrets about not banking his cord blood considering our, well, ignorance, for lack of a better word. The thought of "what if anything ever happened to him where it could have saved his life, and we didn't have access to the blood because we decided that the possibility of saving his life, no matter how slim, didn't justify the cost?" Once that thought crosses your mind, it kind of changes the debate.
I asked my doctor about it. She banked her daughter's blood with Cord Blood Registry, if that is any indication of how she feels about it. Her thoughts were that yes, it is expensive, but the life-saving potential (though slim) is real. She said there are several different options; private banking with a large, established company, private banking with a cheaper and smaller company, or public donation. Apparently the collection process truly does cost the ~$2,000 that it will cost you to bank the blood, and the banks don't really make their money off that initial fee; they make it off the yearly storing charge (~$125). The problem with the public banks is that it's so expensive to operate them and to collect the blood (and at no cost) that they really struggle to stay in operation. If at any point the public bank (or the smaller private bank that might potentially go under) can't stay afloat has to sell the blood off to another bank, there is risk involved in the transport process; if the blood thaws at all, it can potentially be rendered useless. It may be better to spend more to keep it in a place that's been around for a long time to decrease the likelihood that it would ever need to be transported.
Some other pros and cons I've learned through research:
-Public donation (risk of failure aside) may be a good option if it's just too cost-prohibitive to bank the blood. While it would be available to anyone who needed it, the likelihood that it would ever be used by a perfect match is pretty low. If you ever needed to use it, there's a great chance that it would still be available. However, there also may be a very large fee for retrieving blood if it was ever needed for treatment (I've read it can be as low as $15,000 and as high as $30,000 but can't find a lot of info on that). So, cost/benefit analysis: Bank privately, pay a lot up front with the guarantee that it'll be there, but perhaps never have to use it? Donate, pay nothing up front without the guarantee that it'll be there if needed and know that you'll probably have to pay much more if you ever do need it?
-The cord blood can't be used on the baby that it came from to treat genetic disorders. If the cord blood can be used to treat some type of disease, but it's a disease that the baby was born with, then the cord blood that would be used would contain the disease it's trying to treat. This does eliminate a lot of potential uses for the baby (with several still remaining), but it's most likely not a factor in treating siblings.
-There's a 25% chance that it can be used in siblings, and a smaller chance that it can be used to treat other family members. However, it may not contain enough cells to treat an adult match.
Ultimately, we decided to go ahead and do it. Again, it was just that "what if" factor. What if Liam or Baby could have used it in treatment and been saved? It's such a slim possibility, I know...but until I became a parent, I didn't realize the lengths we would go to to prevent ever having to endure the unthinkable. I would be overcome with grief and guilt if anything ever happened to either child and I'd passed up an opportunity to prevent it.
That was just our personal reason behind going ahead with it. I definitely can see the likelihood of using it not justifying the cost; we can't insure against every potential risk we face in living this life. I think that if we didn't decide to go with private banking, we would have definitely considered donation; after all, the possibility of saving another child's life if not your own is also pretty appealing, especially when it's free to you. If you just haven't thought about it - hey, it took us 2 babies to do so. Liam's cord blood is in some haz-mat waste disposal plant somewhere!
I've actually been planning on blogging this for awhile, and I didn't know about Cord Blood Registry's referral program until I made the call tonight (in other words, I didn't write this blog as a solicitation :) But if you are thinking about banking, let me know. I can have the guy send information to you, no obligation, and if you ultimately decide to bank with them, you would get $250 off (we'd get a check as well, but it would actually be less than $250, so more benefit to you).
Anyways, just what we've been debating (with each other, not against) for a little while and how we arrived at our decision. I finally quit being lazy and made the call...now we just need to hold off on going into labor at LEAST until we get the collection kit in a few days...somehow I feel like that would not be a problem.
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