I have 13 pregnant mommies on my prayer list (some of whom read this blog), so I think it’s probably a good time to blog about something I’m really passionate about–and something that follows up on yesterday’s post on fighting the culture of death! We donated Tommy’s umbilical cord blood, and we’re planning to donate this baby’s, as well. We really encourage everyone to do it… It’s quickly becoming the ideal source for both surgical donations and for medical research. There are a few hospitals that do it on site (including Prentice, where I’ll be delivering this time!), but for Tommy we went with a mail-in national donation company called CryoBanks International. The kit was free. It took some time to complete, but we just brought the kit with us to the hospital and gave it to the doctor. Our doctor had agreed in advance to do the donation procedure for free. Also, our doctor noted that it was among the easiest kits he’d seen, and that he’d recommend it to patients in the future who wanted to donate.
This is different from cord blood banking, where you spend thousands of dollars saving your baby’s blood privately. Why would you do that when you could save someone’s life and help make embryonic stem cell research obsolete by doing something that is free, painless, and easy?
Here’s Tommy just after his first act of support for the pro-life cause…
=)