NICU – Our Blood Transfusion Journey

I have never received blood transfusion in my life. Idea of my 14 days old baby getting blood from a stranger was devastating for me. When doctors started talking about the possibility, I was not ready to digest this piece of information.

NICU team combined all lab tests so that the amount of blood drawn from her is optimized. Even tiny amounts matter for little babies. Little efforts from the team like this one gave me hope.

So, I was hopeful that at one point her body might start producing more. It took me a few days to make peace with the idea.

this is me everytime D. got blood transfused

What bothered me the most was that it had to be some stranger’s blood going into her body. According to laws in the country we reside, when a person needs blood due to medical reasons, it must be taken from the blood bank. We were not allowed to volunteer and donate our own blood as parents. I was frustrated.

I asked for several times: Does it have to be a stranger’s blood? Can I not give my own blood to my daughter whom I carried in my womb? It was my blood and placenta which fed her all along. Why can I not give my blood to my baby now?

With all that emotion and frustration, I could never wrap my head around the idea of it was someone else’s blood going into her tiny body.

The day had arrived, and D. had her first transfusion. It went fine. I kept waiting for something to go wrong as I watched the blood going through her body from a thin tube. And the following days, I was waiting for some sort of reaction or infection to appear. I was preparing myself for the worst.

Nothing went wrong. Plus, she looked much healthier even right after the day of transfusion. We could see an immediate change in her vitals, which gave me relief and motivation for the second one, which was 3 weeks after the first one.

She had the third one on the day of discharge. It was SO close, we almost got away with the last one😊 Doctors did not feel comfortable sending us home with such low hemoglobin levels. They were hopeful that this would be the last one. It turned out to be the last one for real.

Post discharge, looking at her growth chart and the way she looked, our doctor did not even need to do a lab test ever again. D. was on iron drops until she was 1 year old chronologically. (Not corrected age)

Blood transfusion is indeed considered as a normal process for preterm babies. As per my experience, it was not as scary as I thought it would be.

I have to say though, even to this day-she is 19 months old now- when I am writing this entry, I still have this bitter feeling thinking about blood transfusion. Then I stop for a second, express my gratitude to the universe for giving me everything I could ever asked for my baby.