Cutting the cord, and calling FedEx

There are some things you never forget. For me, the unforgettable happened one May morning 15 years ago. My memories don’t feel old at all.

My daughter was born at 11:11 that morning. Amid the incredible miracles performed in that hospital room, a more mundane event took place.  

I’d received a FedEx box a few days before. I didn’t know much what to do with it, partially because the instructions were surprisingly simple. Give the box to the medical team; after they return it, leave it outside the hospital door and call FedEx for pickup.

I had done my part—proudly cutting the umbilical cord—and calling FedEx. The doctors and nurses did the rest.

But equally important was what I saw in a very high tech laboratory on the first floor of the Duke building. It was filled with technicians in white lab coats, all hard at work on blood samples. The woman who runs the lab could not have been nicer, or more helpful to our crew, and the work her team was doing couldn’t have been more important.

This is home to Duke’s public cord blood bank, the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank.

I watched as shipments of cord blood arrived in packages much like the package I sent to Arizona all those years ago. Each of these packages contains the medical equivalent of gold. Cord blood can be used to treat very serious medical conditions like cancer, brain injuries and heart defects. In truth, we don’t yet know what cord blood is capable of. The head of Duke’s Pediatric Blood Program is Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a brilliant and gifted doctor. She is also the kind of person who makes you want to be a better human being. Dr. K, as she’s called, barely stands 5 feet tall, but she’s a giant in the field of cord blood. When we asked her about the potential of the technology, she seemed humbled.

“No, we don’t have full knowledge of the future potential of the technology at all,” she said. “I think we are just at the tip of the iceberg, to be honest.” Then she added, with a smile, “I always say the cells are smarter than we are right now, but hopefully someday we are going to be able to harness the power of the cells.”

Parents face two options when saving their cord blood. A private cord blood bank, as I chose, or a public bank. The advantage to the public bank is that anyone in need can receive the gift of life from a public blood bank. With a private bank, your child’s blood is saved unless he or she needs it.

The choice for expectant parents is a significant one. Kurtzberg put it this way: “We are taking what used to be tissue discarded as medical waste and turning it into a lifesaving therapy that is miraculous every day. There are 4 million babies born in the U.S. every year, and most of their cord blood is thrown away.”

Four million chances to save a young life. Four million chances that would otherwise end up as medical waste.  

Here’s a video that helps explain donating cord blood. It’s called “Babies are Amazing.”

The truth is, I don’t ever want to use my daughter’s cord blood. But I’m happy I have it, frozen and all—just in case.