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Pregnancy

My wife was pregnant and I turned into a caveman

My wife was pregnant and I turned into a caveman

by

BabyCenter Guest Blogger

posted in Pregnancy

By Mike Moore

I was at the gym when I got the phone call. My wife was hysterical, but I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying. After I asked her to repeat herself for the third time she paused and took a deep breath. This time I heard everything she said.

“I’m pregnant!”

I couldn’t speak. I think I responded. I wanted to express my excitement. Instead there were a lot of unintelligible sounds coming out of me, most akin to grunting.

“Grrr, ooof, baby good!” is, according to my wife, what I finally said.

My regression into a Cro-Magnon continued from there.

Of all the reactions that flooded over me when I learned we were expecting, one of the strongest was an overwhelming need to protect my wife and son. I felt like a caveman of sorts; all that was missing was a club and loincloth. My instinct was to provide for my family and guard them with my life.

I didn’t go so far as to move us into a cave and hunt for wild boar, but I was relentless. I researched products, I pored over books, and I anchored every piece of furniture in our home. Twice. It’s true, I wasn’t happy the first time and I went back and added a second set. Our walls will probably look like Swiss cheese when we move; there are five anchors supporting our bookcase alone.

I stocked our house with pickles and ice cream, asked my wife’s doctor so many questions that she had to schedule a second appointment for me — I mean, us — just to answer everything, and formed a human shield between my wife’s midsection and the world each time we left the house. If anyone got too close I wanted to pound my chest in fury and pounce. I didn’t…but I wanted to. It was barbaric at best.

Still, I wanted to do more. It was around this time that we started to talk about banking our son’s cord blood and tissue at birth. Besides the fact that we wanted to give him every opportunity possible, we both had concerns about our medical backgrounds.

My father was adopted. Half of my family’s medical history begins only with him. There are a lot of questions that we can’t answer because of that. This missing information left me feeling that my son was unduly exposed to risk.

My wife and I are both in our 40s and knew we would only be having one child. If a child (or anyone) takes ill, there are certain cases where siblings can be donors — for stem cells, bone marrow, and other things. Our son won’t have a sibling. This was a different kind of potential help we could offer instead. While cord blood stem cell transplants often require the use of cells from a well-matched donor, there may be cases where a child can use their own cells and cord blood research in the area of regenerative medicine continues to advance.

The more we researched, the more we knew it was the right decision for us. There were several options to choose from, but only one made sense for us. We chose CBR because numbers don’t lie. In head-to-head comparisons with competitors, CBR leads the pack. It has invested in the most FDA-regulated clinical trials, and is the top choice of ob-gyns and expecting parents.

Aside from having to fill out some forms (which, I’ll be honest, my wife took care of) there was no downside to the process. Our doctors handled the collection process and a courier came directly to the hospital to securely transport our kit. Banking his newborn cord blood and tissue gives us confidence in his future.

Beyond the things that stem cells may be used for now, the future possibilities are wonderful. Research is advancing in numerous areas and new technologies may become real possibilities. We may be able to take advantage of it because we chose to bank his cord blood and tissue.

Hopefully we will never need to use it. But knowing it is there gives me a sense of peace and calm. I feel like I’m doing my job and have given him a sort of protection.

And I didn’t have to slay any woolly mammoths to do it.

*****

Mike Moore author photoMike Moore is a marketing executive living in California with his wife and toddler son. He is the proud husband of a mom blogger, and has given his wife carte blanche to discuss all details of their life. He just doesn’t always read it. He’s hopeful his son will enjoy fishing with him one day because his wife has a big aversion to worms. He can be found sporadically on Instagram.

 

This post is sponsored by CBR.

Disclaimer:

Cord tissue use is still in early research stages, and there is no guarantee that treatment using cord tissue will be available in the future.  Should such use become available, cord tissue will require additional processing prior to use.  CBR is currently evaluating the potential to isolate and prepare multiple cell types from cryopreserved cord tissue for potential future use.

Cbr Systems, Inc.’s activities for New York residents are limited to collection of umbilical cord tissue and long-term storage of umbilical cord-derived stem cells.  Cbr Systems, Inc.’s possession of a New York State license for such collection and long-term storage does not indicate approval or endorsement of possible future uses or future suitability of these cells.

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