Although we haven’t wanted to think about it, one of the treatments for leukaemia is a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. This is usually done if a child isn’t responding to chemo, or at the stage they want them to be at during certain points of their treatment.
We didn’t even know what a bone marrow transplant was as again, it was all new to us. And luckily at the moment Chester has gone onto the standard risk arm for his treatment so will not need one at the moment.
When Chester was diagnosed the consultant showed us an example of a roadmap ahead, and this changed when we found out about the Philidelphia chromosome that Chester has in his Leukaemia. Because of the type he has, sometimes a stem cell transplant is needed. But we are just hoping that he will carry on responding well to chemo and fighting this horrible blood cancer, so one will not be needed!
What is a bone marrow transplant?
A bone marrow transplant is a medical procedure where doctors replace damaged or sick bone marrow with healthy stem cells. Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside your bones that makes blood cells, which are important for your immune system and overall health. The goal of the transplant is to help the body make healthy blood cells again.
Usually, they have to find a donor to give you stem cells. When we first mentioned it to our parents, Christian’s dad had heard somewhere that you can get stem cells from a baby’s umbilical cord. As I was heavily pregnant we thought it was worth investigating. So we mentioned it to our CNS and consultant and they said they would look into it for us.
Donating Cord Blood
So after looking into it for us, donating cord blood was actually a real thing but not commonly done on the NHS. But our medical team at our treatment centre for Chester said they had found more out and could arrange it all for us.
Cord blood banking involves collecting stem cells from a newborn’s umbilical cord and placenta, which are then stored for potential future medical use. Stem cells are unique because they can develop into various types of cells in the body.
The person who collects the cord blood just draws it from the cord after birth. Then it is sent to a lab or blood bank for storage.
I just had to sign some consent forms and it was arranged at our local hospital. We weren’t told much but just to make sure the midwives were aware when I happened to go into labour.
Although we should never need it, we thought we might as well book in the collection as a kind of insurance policy, just in case. However, it also depended on Aurora’s stem cells being a match for Chester. Siblings are more likely to be a match but only have a 25% chance!
Collecting the Stem Cells
Same as Chester and Willow, Aurora was holding on and I was 1 week overdue. At 41 weeks we finally went into the hospital because my contractions began to come really close together late in the evening, but the labour slowed down and then carried on for a few more days!
Because of everything going on and not knowing what was happening and when Chester could be going into the hospital or the next steps, we decided to book an induction for a few days time.
On the day of induction, you have to phone up and see if they have any spaces for you to go in and be induced. The hospital was busy that day so although I was supposed to get induced they did not have the space, so I was told to not come in and that they would be in touch on the phone as soon as they had midwives available. It was kind of frustrating as I had been in slow labour for around 5 days and in quite a bit of pain.
Later, I noticed that my waters had broken so I phoned back up and asked if we should come in. They weren’t too worried but wanted to get us in as she was aware we had stem cell collection needing to be done.
When we turned up at our local hospital we were taken to one of the labor rooms and were then seen by one of the midwives. We mentioned Chester’s stem cell collection and she was not too sure about it or what happened, so went to find out. Although they should have already known what was happening as it was supposed to be already arranged, so this was very stressful!
She came back and said a lady from Bristol would need to come down once the baby had been born to get the stem cells/cord blood, but needs to be done straight after birth. This seemed crazy to us as you can’t predict the exact time you are going to have your baby. Christian then said Bristol is a 2-hour drive, so if she came once the baby was here it would surely be too late.
The midwife agreed and spoke to Bristol and they said she would come down and wait around until the baby was here, this then allowed me to relax and have Aurora.
This was kind of not the case because once the lady had arrived from Bristol she was very pushy and kept asking the midwives how long I was going to be, asking if the baby was here yet, and also asking if I wasn’t going to have an epidural to slow down the pregnancy. Although I wasn’t I don’t think she would of been happy if I had one.
They broke my waters and then everything ramped up extremely quickly, and an hour later Aurora was here. I think they were worrying about this lady from Bristol, but to be fair the labour wasn’t progressing on its own.
Once baby Aurora was born she was also knocking on the door asking if the placenta had been delivered so that she could then collect the umbilical cord and placenta. Because of this, I felt the midwives were then rushing and not allowing me to relax and get over the whole birth. It’s a shame as it’s supposed to be an amazing occasion.
After Aurora had finally arrived and the midwives had followed their special instructions, they gave the umbilical cord and placenta to the lady who came down from Bristol. She then extracted blood from it and then filled out a load of paperwork, then left. I also had to give some of my blood.
The crazy thing is she did not leave with the stem cells. She then contacted a courier from Oxford who came down and collected the stem cells straight away to be taken and stored at the Oxford blood bank, which is where they are kept.
Either way, the stem cell delivery, and the collection were a success and we were waiting to find out if the stem cells were a match for Chester, just in case he were to go down the High-risk route and have a bone marrow transplant. If he did and the stem cells were a match, then we would not need to find a donor and could use those instead.
I think if Aurora had come the weekend before, the stem cell collection would not have happened as they didn’t know about it that evening and it needs to be booked and planned, which is very hard to do!
However, it was very kind of our treatment centre to arrange it for us as it is not done at all hospitals at the moment and is quite expensive, especially privately. I think it should be done automatically where possible, as it could help many people in the future!
**Update**
Aurora is now 7 weeks old. We have found out that the Stem Cells are a match for Chester and Aurora, which is great news as it means we will be able to use them in the future if ever needed.