Is anyone planning to bank cord blood?

I did it with Fionn and am not sure of doing it again.

[PrettyKitty1]

Hmm....not me. Don't you have to pay for that?

[KarenDiane]

I looked into it with my last baby but it was too expensive.

[PrettyKitty1]

Expensive......that's why I'm not doing it.

[jschoch8]

i signed up with cbr. it is expensive $2000 and $125 a year. then my doc just send me a $300 bill to draw it, ugh.

[rebekah385]

I've thought about in past pregnancies, but it cost to much for my family. I do think it is a good thing to do if you can afford it though and with my last pregnancy I was going to donate my baby's cord blood, since it does not cost anything to donate it and if they hav'nt used it and you or your family need it you can get it back, but even if you don't it could help someone else! my Dr at the time though had never done it before and was'nt comfortable with it, so I ended up not donating it. if you can do it go for it and if not don't stress about it!

[ashleighnb]

I was going to with this pregnancy because of Destinee's diagnosis with cancer. But her oncologist said that it wouldn't help her because she has brain cancer and not luekemia or a blood/bone cancer. He said that when they did her stem cell harvest a few weeks ago that they got enough that they could do all her transplants and have some left over to keep for future use. So he told me to save my money rather than try to bank the cord blood. They will be testing the new baby though to see if she has the missing gene that Destinee has that caused her tumor to start growing.

[mandasimas]

I think it is a really great idea to donate your cord blood if you cant afford it. It's something that is very useful in the medical world in research and saving lives, and would otherwise get thrown out. In my uneducated opinion its the best way to get stem cells (adult stem cells are hard to retrieve, and I personally don't like taking stem cells from aborted fetus') and a lot of hospitals are already hooked up with the blood banks to donate. For me, all I need to do is go in for some free bloodwork in the next few weeks and fill in some papers that I take the hospital with me when I deliver (I already have to bring papers and things anyway). I think the process is pretty standard but I'm not sure. I feel like its a pretty easy way to give back.