With two young, healthy children—a boy and a girl—Kelly and Corey thought their family was complete. Then they learned they were expecting. While Kelly had considered cord blood banking for her older two children, for this pregnancy, she decided to definitely bank the baby’s cord blood.

When Corey asked her more about cord blood banking, Kelly admitted, “I don’t know a lot about it, but I know enough that it could potentially save the life of our baby or of her siblings.”

And, they didn’t think too much more about it, even after their baby girl, Cadence, was born with a large knot in her umbilical cord. Kelly explains, “I remember thinking how lucky we were that the knot didn’t kill her. Never for a second did I think it had caused any kind of brain damage.”

It wasn’t for another six months that Kelly and Corey would learn Cadence had cerebral palsy—a chronic condition that affects the body’s motor control. For Cadence, this left her unable to walk or talk.

And, while Kelly playfully admits, “she’s a handful,” she and Corey recognize that she’s a “wonderful little girl who’s very affectionate, smiles and lot and is very cognitively aware.” But still, they began having difficult conversations. Corey explains, “we wondered if this was our life—if we would always have a disabled child.”

Around the same time, Kelly received an email from ViaCord that contained information about a study at Duke University for children with cerebral palsy, who are reinfused with their own cord blood. Kelly was “astonished” to learn that this wasn’t just theoretical—there were children participating in the trial and seeing positive results.

We spoke to Kelly and Corey just before they were leaving for Duke University so that Cadence could participate in the clinical trial. Kelly and Corey didn’t know what to expect. “We’d welcome any kind of improvement…if she could walk with assistance or talk and tell us what she wants.” But they also admit, they wonder if there is something more to it. Kelly asks, “Why didn’t I bank Kiefer’s or Callia’s cord blood, but I banked Cadence’s? That’s something.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s amazing. The fact that I banked Cadence’s blood and now we’re using it—I feel like this is miracle blood.”

Stay tuned to our website and blog for updates about Cadence.

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