Lisa,

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Aidan is the oldest of my three children.  We paid $1200 to have our second child's cord blood banked with a private cord bank (cordpartners).  Nolan turned out not to be a match for Aidan, but we still pay the $100 annual fee to save the cord blood, just in case.  At the time I was pregnant with my third child, we found out that Aidan would definitley need a bone marrow transplant and began searching for unrelated donors.  In the mean time, I did some research and found out about a program through Viacord that offers free collection and storage of cord blood for up to five years if there is a sibling that needs it.  The sibling has to qualify (i.e they need doctor approval that BMT is neccessary) if the sample does not match, they will still save it for free for five years and then you can decide if you want to continue to save it (for a fee) after the five years.  You can check out the program here: http://www.viacord.com/special-transplant-programs.htm  My third child, Liam, did in fact match Aidan perfectly.  His cord blood was used in Aidan's transplant.

Amy

Mom to Aidan 7 with history of PIDD and evans (BMT 2007)