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Nice bump!

I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but we had to give blood while we were pledges (unless excused by the blood bank). I was a bit whiny about it afterwards, and a sister handed me a book - Journey by Robert & Suzanne Massie. It changed my viewpoint on giving blood forever.

My silly brother still hasn't gotten his blood retyped, even after having had massive medical problems in the past few months. He was in Intensive Care in two different hospitals for the month of May. I never got a chance to talk to his doctor, or I would have told the doctor to test his blood type.

OOPS. Double post!

I'm A-.

Warning to any of us still under 20 (I know, we're a minority)- they've seriously upped the weight limit for women. I tried to donate a week ago, and I didn't weigh enough. For someone 4'11" (my height), you had to be 141 pounds to donate. I weigh about 20 pounds less than that, so I"m out of the donor pool again. However, once you get past 20 years of age, the weight limit drops back down to 110 for all.

My blood type has always been a "sensitive issue" in my family.:p

Both my parents are A+ (and so is my sister) so when I was born, they just told the doctors I should be A+ because they both are AND THE IDIOTS PUT THAT IN MY MEDICAL CHARTS WITHOUT CHECKING. So I lived my whole life with that in my records and all the times I had blood drawn, no one thought to check or change it. When I gave blood at 18, I found out I was O+. :eek: It totally freaked me out--I thought I had been adopted or switched at birth or something. I didn't think it was possible to be a different blood type than both your parents but my mom researched it and told me to get a grip, it can happen. :o

Yeah, ABO blood typing has recessive and dominant features, so your parents are actually AO, and when you were conceived and magical genetic things happened you ended up being O, which you only had a 25% chance of being. Your sister ended up in the 75% category of being A.

Once you're O, you can only pass on O to your kids, so when my ex and I were discussing children we knew our kid would be O since we are both O+ (and likely blue eyed and blonde or red headed since all of our features are recessive). Eventually over time there will be more and more people in the world with O blood, as there are less pockets of people who are not intermarrying and interbreeding with others.

I'm A- . I don't think it's common, but I don't think its the rarest either.

A+, baby.

There is a nice little chart for this at:http://www.givelife2.org/aboutblood/bloodtypes.asp
It is a little bit down the page. I believe it is the third image.

I'm O-, which makes me a universal donor. Unfortunately, I'm also STDON+, which means I don't donate like I should.

(STDON+ = Scared To Death Of Needles)

O+, I've donated a few times. Yes it hurts, but thinking of the good I'm doing makes it a little less painful. And who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies and orange juice?

The Red Cross has a booth at our state fair where they will do blood typing for free. It only takes a few minutes, and is pretty cool. I already knew my BT, but the hub didn't know his. We found out he's A+.

Fortunately, that guideline is not applicable to all collection agencies. Many in the US are still collecting platelets from women. Often, men who have had transfusions are also excluded. Contact your local blood bank before assuming you can't donate. AND, you may still be eligible to donate whole blood!

Jen - thanks for donating in the past. Hopefully, future testing and more info about TRALI will ease the restrictions.

Blood type became a sensitive issue in my family too, but my story is a little different. I always believed I was O+, because both my mother and father were O+. But after I became pregnant with my first child, the doctor told me I was B+! This was impossible, so I got retyped -- it came back B+ again. After being O+ for all my life, it was a shock to discover I was B+.

I began to wonder... was I adopted or switch at birth?? :confused: I asked my parents if they were sure they were O+. Dad insisted he was O+, because he had been told in the military and when he donated blood in the past. Mom insisted she was O+, because she had been told when she had a baby.

I called up my sister to discuss. She decided to get typed, and sure enough she also came back B+! By this time, we decided that either mom or dad were not telling us something or one of them was wrong. To end all the speculation, mom got retyped. And because she could not believe the result, she got retyped again. She was B+!

My mom says she cannot believe that her doctor told her the wrong blood type all those years ago. We all laugh about the mixed-up blood type now. So if the blood types in your family do not make sense, please get retyped! Better safe than sorry. :D

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