Disclosure: The opinions expressed in this post are mine and mine entirely. I received a $300 discount on the one time processing fee from ViaCord in exchange for writing a post about my experience. This discount was offered after I had made my decision to bank with them.
Once Amanda and I found out that we were going to be having our first child, I was hit with a full mix of emotions. I wrote about this over at Medtronic’s Loop-Blog, so I won’t go into too much detail here about that. One of the things on my list was whether or not to do cord blood banking. I was told by a lot of type 1 parents that it is a no brainer and that they did it because you never know what the future will hold. Based on that feedback, I knew I was going to do it, but I didn’t know what company I was going to use or how I was going to do it.
I had been collecting information about all of the different companies that do cord blood banking whenever I went to any sort of doctor visit or anything baby related that had information available. As time went by, I had narrowed down my choices to just 2 different companies. A week before the due date and I still hadn’t chosen a company or made a final decision. I know, I am a huge procrastinator.
On March 18, I finally decided that I was going to call ViaCord to set up our cord blood banking. Our due date was March 23 and we had just come home from a doctor’s appointment and Amanda was less than 1 cm, so I knew that I had a few days to get the package in the mail.
Setting up the account with ViaCord was very smooth. The person I spoke with was very friendly and very easy to deal with. After setting up the account, she alerted me that they will be shipping out the collection box to me overnight and I should receive it the next day. Later in the night, I received an email with the tracking number and said it should be at my house by 8 p.m. the next day. Perfect! Plenty of time for delivery.
Then, the next day happened. Amanda woke up and she felt “different” then she had felt all through her pregnancy. And then it happened, she started to feel contractions. It was about 1 p.m. and I remembered that the ViaCord package had not been delivered by FedEx yet and I had to take the box with me to the hospital. At about 4:00 p.m. we called the OB and they instructed us to head to the hospital. As I was collecting the “Go Bag” and packing up the car, I could hear the engine of a nice Fed Ex truck coming down the street. And there it was, my ViaCord collection box just in time of going to the hospital.
Honestly, I don’t think they could have even written something like this for a movie! It arrived 10 minutes before we were leaving for the hospital.
The entire cord blood collection process was simple. Once I told the nurses we were doing it, they drew blood from Amanda first and then collected the cord blood after the delivery process happened. The doctor did all the work, and I tried to watch a bit, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of my daughter.
After that, I made a phone call to the 24 hour phone service to schedule for the package to be picked up the next morning. At about 6:45 AM, a courier picked the package up and took it off to the airport.
I received an email the next day stating that everything arrived in good condition and that it will take a couple weeks for the processing of the cord blood to take place.
After a couple of weeks, I did receive that email and stated that everything with the collection samples were good to go.
Overall, I am happy that I made the decision to do cord blood banking. There was not much effort on my end and it was something that the doctors and nurses seemed very well versed in.
We did cord-blood banking for both of our son’s births (first in 2007 and second in 2011). The crazy thing is that it’s all speculative on it possibly being able to help with diabetes – either in one of my children or possibly in my self — or whatever else may come along; but given the diabetes, figured it was worth the risk.
The crazy thing is that the first time, I was able to deduct the cost using my employer Flexible Spending Account. The second time, the claim was denied (even after appeal), which made me furious and had me scrambling to make eligible purchases to get my money back. (He was born in November, so there wasn’t much time!). I do believe it has the potential to be beneficial and I’m glad we did — and glad you did — it’s just a shame that there is no standard for FSA reimbursement.
Scott – thanks for the comment. We do not have a FSA, however, I would never have even thought that insurance would cover something like this as it’s not really a medical expense, but I guess I can try and get re-imbursed? I agree with the speculation, but for $100/year, it’s well worth it to have than to not have it.