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3rd Trimester
cord blood and ILs...vent
Back in early fall, DH & I decided to not do cord banking. It's just something that I looked into and we decided it's not for us. This morning, I get an email from MIL stating she wants us to bank the blood, more than happy to pay for it as well as the yearly fee. I do understand this very generous of ILs to do this since it is costly however, MIL went out and has everything done without asking us if this is something we would like to do. I do have to say, I'm assuming DH doesn't know anything about this. I hope for his sake, he doesn't. We can't even talk about it because hes at work right now and one of his co-workers is staying with us for the week (that's a whole other story).
This isn't the first time she's done something like this.She's just 'so excited and in love with this baby already' and it is driving me crazy. I try to keep a smile on my face but it is getting very difficult.
The other thing, we live 1.5hrs away from all of our family. While my Dr. will collect the blood, it is our responsibility to do everything else. Well, if I deliver and there is bad weather and no family is able to make it up for the birth, DH is supposed to be there for me (which is what he really wants), take pictures, and worry about doing everything correctly for the cord blood people? I don't think so. This is our first baby and she's taking the specialness out of it. Anyway, it is probably a good thing DH isn't around so I can calm down before I see him and ask him about this email.
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Re: cord blood and ILs...vent
I have a pushy MIL...but honestly...this is one place that I would work my hardest to move past the pushy part. Banking the cord blood is an awesome opportunity and the fact that they are willing to take on the entire cost of it, is huge in my opinion.
I do understand the frustration with her not talking to you before she set it up. Is there another company that would send a rep. to the hospital to collect it so you dont have to take it?? Just an idea...
Hope things work out.
Oh, we dealt with this same situation! Only it was my parents and it was worse, because what happened with us was that initially they mentioned it in an email and I said we weren't interested.
Then my dad called me while stepmom was on the other line ordering the service. He just needed to get the name of our hospital from us! We went back and forth with me trying to tell him we didn't want it, until finally I had to get really up in arms about it and tell him that the AAP doesn't recommend it and we DO NOT WANT IT, period! I even emailed him some articles while we were talking to back up my point. Finally he backed down but sounded offended.
It really upset me but in the end I'm glad we saved them a couple thousand dollars they really could not afford... after it was all said & done he even admitted that they can barely keep up with the banking fees for their two little ones! ugh
BE FIRM. This is your choice, whether they pay for it or not.
We're banking our cord blood and the company will send a messenger to the hospital to pick up the blood. Is that not an option?
I think thats really generous and while I get you'd rather have been consulted first I think at this point I'd just say thank you.
I've heard similar things. I also heard if you want to donate, sometimes the paperwork & tests take more than 6 weeks. It may be possible you don't have time to get things together even for banking. And I assume the banking process requires a larger commitment on your part than just signing a check. I am in favor of donating when possible, but if you and H have decided it's not for you, she needs to respect this.
I have done a little bit of research when I was interested in it and found we were responsible for everything. Along those lines, our neighbors had some family who wanted to bank the cord blood and they had to have everything in place for when the baby came including who was responsible for letting the company know about collecting the kit. The ILs are planning to be at the hospital but like I mentioned, we live 1.5 hrs away and with possible bad weather, they may not be able to make it here. We have no other family in the area we do have a few friends but nobody we're super close with to ask them to do this for us.
These are some reasons why I didn't want to do it. There *might* be a problem in the future but who's to say the cord blood we're saving will have the answer. I do donate whenever possible but I feel as though some of it gets out of hand and MIL falls for the scary commercials. My Dr doesn't recommend it and when the nurse gave us the information for it, she was very clear that AAP doesn't endorse it.
Do you know remember the name of the article? I will still look it up though! Thanks!
Sorry I don't remember it- it was around 2007-2008 but I did google and find this Time article about it: https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989887,00.html
What is most interesting is you have a better chance of being struck by lightening then needing cord blood.
We banked DD's cord blood and it was a breeze. My OB knew before hand, and we just brought the kit with us to the hospital. They already had it in my admitting paperwork to ask for the kit. My Ob and nurse did everything else including calling the courier.
We won't be banking ours, but we will donate it since it's free to do so. Even when banking there's a chance that your cord blood won't be able to be used in the event that your LO would need it for something...do your IL's know that? Even donating, there's chances that they won't be able to even store your cord blood if they aren't able to collect enough of it or what-have-you.
If ours that we're donating is able to be kept and will help someone, great.. and hopefully if we have any problems and we need to try to find a match, there will be one available... but the cost of banking our own for a "maybe" result just didn't seem to make sense to us.