when our babies were in the NICU, family, friends and strangers from all over the world were incredibly supportive. time and again we got emails, calls and visits with the recurring theme, "we wish there was more we could do than just pray for you". although praying was actually the BEST thing they could do for us, i know what they mean. when friends are spending large amounts of time watching parents, siblings, or children fight for their lives, you wish there was a casserole you could bake, babies you could sit, laundry you could do.
there is something you can do. but first here is a wee anecdote, a teaser for the full story which i will post in a few months as soon as i finish it.
before i knew i was having triplets and right after my blood tests proved i was indeed pregnant, i was hospitalised. in five weeks, i had gained 80 pounds. i was suffering from something called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). women like me, who are polycystic, are especially prone to OHSS. what happens is, during an IVF cycle, you are taking a gonadtrophin that promote your egg production. your ovaries get larger and larger, housing these follicles. they dragged 37 follicles from me. and instead of my now empty ovaries shrinking, they continued to grow, and fluid from the bloodstream leaked into the abdominal cavity. causing it to swell, put me in extreme pain. the day i was admitted to hospital, my lungs were beginning to fill as well.
my stomach had to be drained multiple times. and my albumin, a protein produced by the liver, was dangerously low. albumin performs many functions including maintaining the "osmotic pressure" that causes fluid to remain within the blood stream instead of leaking out into the tissues.
my body was too ill to make more albumin, i needed transfusions of human albumin, which is derived from blood transfusions, twice a day for ten days. those transfusions saved my life, and the babies’ lives as well.
months (not nearly enough months) later, the wee three were born. and i remember walking into the NICU one day and seeing a big red hot water bottle on top of sela’s incubator.
oh how sweet, it is chilly today and they are making sela cosy by giving her a hot water bottle.
i smiled to myself thinking how caring the staff were, until upon closer inspection, i realised the hot water bottle was really a bag of blood. sela was getting a tranfusion. to help raise her white platelet count. to "perk her up". over the next weeks, all our babies had complete and partial blood transfusions. without a doubt, their lives were saved by the strangers who gave blood.
if you want to do something tangible to show your support for a preemie baby, a wonderful way is to give blood. jasper, sela and carys had complete transfusions, where the blood in their system was removed and the blood of strangers soon coursed through my children’s bodies. their blood became part of my children, strengthened them and saved their delicate lives. a stranger saved my child.
if you can, please give blood. you could be that stranger.
Reader interactions
27 Replies to “what you can do”
Your words are beautiful and the call to action profound.
It is nice to have a concept of something concrete that I can do in honor of your triumph and of those that have walked & will walk in your shoes.
February 23, 2005 will find me at my local blood bank most certainly. And before then and after then. Because of you, Tess.
You are wonderful to know.
xoxo
I donate every 60 days like clockwork. It is something that takes an hour out of my day, and causes me no harm. I also consider it a great way for my body to force its-self to make fresh new blood to support my body and in 60 days, hopefully save the lives of others.
A co-worker of mine and I go together when we donate, and we race each other to see who can fill the bag the fastest. I find it makes other people see that giving blood is really not that bad at all.
Good on you for writing this!
Ps) I am also on the world wide bone marrow list too…
Love you!
P
ps)Boulder, good on you for giving, if you are ever in Edmonton we can race each other 🙂
I used to give blood, even took my 7 yo to watch/get cookies when I could. Then I went to the (evil) exotic (beautiful, fun, tropical, snorkeling haven) island of Roatan, Honduras this year. All of Honduras is out-of-bounds for anyone in America desiring to donate blood for a year. It makes me both mad and disappointed. It is an island far from the coast, much, much farther away from the mainland than the courtries boardering right up next to the rest of Honduras. (Sorry, this became a rant. Sore subject. My time in purgatory is up in 5 months.)
Pam you have a deal. Next time I’m in Edmonton we’ll race.
k, I’ve never been to Edmonton, but there is always a first time… 🙂
In tears, again, over something you’ve written. Blood, of course! Brilliant, and yet so many of us would never think of it in terms of babies in the NICU.
Up until the days I was no longer allowed to give blood, I did on a regular basis. They sent postcards to remind me when I could donate again.
I’ll remind my friends.
as a semi-regular blood donor, and someone with “baby blood” according to one of the phlebotomists, i’ll be sure to remember to go visit Civitan soon. i was on the deferred for 9 months list, but i should be able to donate again soon (just have to get my iron back up). as an interesting side note, i believe my last donation was 24 Feb 2004.
Brilliant. I also donate blood, but sadly, due to either being pg, miscarrying or somewhere in between, I have not been allowed to donate blood for about two years. But I will be back.
Ben also had a few blood transfusions that gave us a few more days with him, so I will second Tess’s thanks.
Lastly, unless you have religious objections, I would like to urge every one to become organ donors as well. It is the ultimate gift you can give to someone.
Imagine if it was you, or your child needing an organ one day…..
Delurking (as usual, after T., for some bizarre reason) to say BLOODY PSORIASIS! I am NOT allowed to give blood bcs who needs all the nasty extra neutrophils, I am tainted, and bcs I live in a country where not many people do it it so aggravates me. In fact, it’s the thing that annoys me most abt having P. bcs my having it affects others as well, I’d give every 2 months if I could. I can donate marrow, however, bcs they can filter out the BAD BAD bits but the compatibility odds are so remote I don’t feel better at all. I fully intend to donate my whole body to science, and then let’s see who wins.
Wonderful reminder.
I was working on my third gallon donated when the Mad Cow fears got me permanently sidelined. I lived in the UK for one year, before the outbreak, but within the time period that the Red Cross deems “possibly exposed”
When I was donating, I was CMV-negative, which meant my blood was safe for neonates. I’m sorry I can’t help with that anymore – but I still urge all my friends and relatives to sign up for every blood drive that comes around. It is SO EASY, and its something you can give to help others when you have little else to offer.
Excellent idea. Thanks, Tertia, for sending me over here. But wait, Lioness, you can’t donate because you have psoriasis? Where the hell do you live? In the US you can’t if you’ve ever had unprotected sex as a man with another man or with an IV drug user–even if you’ve tested HIV negative for years–which annoys the hell out of me because it denies a whole lot of nice, monogamous gay friends, but I do believe that my weepy arms won’t keep me away.
De-lurking to respond. I’m an anonymous egg donor (currently in the midst of my 5th donation cycle) and I developed OHSS on my first donation. Thankfully mine was not nearly as severe as yours – I only gained about 20 pounds, but it was so scary.
Thanks for your post. It is great.
O negative, I am. (waits for applause)
Means I can’t have babies of my own without risk to my child’s life, but I can save the babies for the rest of you.
Kinda takes the sting out of being infertile, knowing I can help others.
Hope you all enjoy my blood. Sorry ’bout eating all those pumpkin pie blizzards at DQ, but, hey, you know, they were GOOD….
Oh, don’t forget to be an organ and tissue donor, too!
Beautiful post, Tess. Thank you.
My babies used that blood also. So very important – they couldn’t have made it otherwise.
Lauren (mom of Ryley and Turner)
I live in South Africa. Up until last week blood donated by the “coloured” and African population were being destroyed. The reason was that based on thier race group they were high risk for HIV/AIDS. This included our President’s blood. Can you imagine the temendous loss of blood over a number of years? Absolutely ridiculous.
Up until this year I wasn’t allowed to give blood because I didn’t weight enough. That is the one good thing about the weight I have gained.
LPF, I live in Portugal and it actually makes a bit of sense that I’m not allowed. P is a systemic disease meaning it affects the whole body. My blood is riddled with my own autoantibodies (which may induce attacks on the joints) and a ridiculously high number of cytokines (which cause inflammation and injury) and neutrophils (big players in the inflammatory process as well). I do know that some hospitals allow it but an organism in need of a transfusion is obviously not in very good shape and it really doesn’t need all the crap we will bring into it, it will already have to fight off its own problem, it doesn’t need OUR very special one added to it.
Just wanted to add: donate platelets if you can! You can actually donate platelets every 3 days (although they limit you to 24 donations a year–at least here in the states.) But platelets are often given instead of whole blood for all kinds of reasons. It’s almost like giving blood, but it takes longer. But, hey, it gives you an excuse to sit still for an hour or two!
i’m not able to give blood, but i am signed up with the marrow network–only now that i have colitis i’ve been told that makes my marrow ineligible. weird, because it’s not a contagious disease…
Add me to the list of people who’d never thought of preemies as potential blood recipients but are now more committed to donating blood. I was granted blood from some nice strangers twice after my son was born, so I’m not allowed to donate for a while, but when I can I’ll be picturing a baby. Why doesn’t the Red Cross focus on that possible use when recruiting donors? Don’t you think more people would be swayed by an infant than an adult?
Remember, It’s just as important to donate for all who need it(babies, teens, adults, and the elderly)
An o- donor for the past 16 years.
Oh, excellent reasoning. Because there’s a possibility your blood could go to someone whose lifestyle you disapprove of, you won’t donate to ANYone. Stones, glass houses. Maybe you’re young, too young to have developed compassion or understanding or logic.
Excellent post, Tess.
Tess, that’s really sweet, you went and got a Really Very Unintelligent Troll for our entertainement, YOU ROCK! He is The Stupidest Troll ever, v v funny. Did you order online or is it a local store?
I’m unable to donate blood, but I am able, and do, donate breastmilk.
Hey! You’ve been trolled by the most hateful and nasty people on the web–the Childfree “Dumbfuck Breeder and Crotchsprog” haters!! Congratulations on making the big time!!!
Amen! Ty had 7 blood transfusions and I am so grateful for those that saved his life. Also…Ty’s albumen level was low and I never understood what that was. Thanks for the explanation. Sorry that happened to you though. Just never let up did it!
Love ya
BTW, that was AMEN to what YOU said! LOL!