cord blood

Drew and I have recently started discussing whether we want to collect and save our baby's cord blood after he or she is born.

I searched online and found (what I can tell to be) the 2 best companies for this process. It seems like the Cord Blood Registry and ViaCord are the ways we could go. I requested information from both of them, but while I was waiting for it I thought I'd ask you all...

What do you think of cord blood collection?

Have you done it?

Will you in the future?

Did you use either of these companies? How has your experience with them been?

As a scientist, I definitely understand the benefit of having the cord blood available if anything terrible would happen. What's hard to swallow is the very high cost of collection and storage. Again, I understand why it costs quite a bit, what I'm not sure is if we can swing it with a newborn on the way. There would certainly be other things we'd have to forgo -- is it worth it?

Isn't that the way it always is??

If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!