HLA Typing COMPLETE!

We were finally able to get the HLA Typing COMPLETE for each member of our family. It was QUITE the ordeal! For starters, we arrived some time around 11. I got a bad feeling when the gentleman that checked us in told us to "get comfortable as we were going to be there A LONG TIME!" True to His word we were there for about 5 hours! Apparently paperwork for HLA typing for a family of 7 is quite extensive. Lots of waiting around, and waiting... sheesh, you'd think we were The Duggar's! :-) ( we had to actually be admitted into the hospital, not the simple quick and easy blood test I originally thought it would be)

We told to go to a special part of St Joseph that deals with Donor Type issues.

I was abit irritated when we arrived. One employee took one look at us and said in the most irritated, inconvenienced, exasperated voice he could muster. "WHAT! YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO DO ALL OF THEM? The WHOLE FMILY? There's SO MANY OF THEM! (along with a sighing and eye rolling) We were of course within ear shot. I'm thinking 1) Isn't it, you know.. your JOB to take blood? It's what you DO FOR A LVING. What does it matter if we are all from ONE family or from several. Just take our dang blood without complaining for Pete's sake! 2) I'm thinking, in THIS economy do you really want to have such disdain for the people that are providing yo with work? That was so irritating and really concerned me about how the rest of the procedure would go.

Fortunately all went really well. I wasn't really up for "why aren't the kids in school." Honestly, I didn't know how the kids would react to it all and wanted to see how well they would do before I mentioned that we homeschool. Gotta represent ya know! :-) Once we got inside we had the NICEST sweet nurses/phlebotomists ever. They all came in to compliment how well teh kids did. So many of them seemed quite amazed at how many children we had and how well they each behaved. We heard over and over again how impressive they were. ( it helped that I gave them all candy during the procedure) My very sensitive son that I expected to wig out did great, all of them did. I was most impressed with Anaiah as she has tiny veins and I watched as they rooted ALL around her arm looking for the vein. I wanted to totally GAG, but she was just her normal smiley self.

The only one who cried was Hezekiah. He really took to the nurse ( she was pretty) and he smiled and smiled at her flirting and smiling.. His little face showed concerned when she put on the mask. HE WAS LIKE " HEY WAIT AN MINTUE.. WHAT'S GOING ON... Then she pinned his little arm down and he all out panicked!


Here you can see him look totally betrayed almost as if to say " I thought we had something special! Elijah does great here. I wanted to take photos of everything because if we have a match it really will be special. I told them that we are all taking one for the team. TEAM RODRIGUEZ! :-)


Huatzin was the only one who complained. He doest like needles. I told him he needed to man up a bit. I had to get my blood drawn all while holding a very angry crying baby that was also trying to rip the needle out of my arm to taste it. As we were leaving the nurses were full of raise for the kids and 1 lady that had to know Jesus told me that my family/children were such a blessing. I then felt comfortable telling them it was because we homeschool. :-) To which they all agreed had to be the reason. ;-) ( could ALSO be the candy! ) We had a couple of other issues/adventures, such as losing keys and searching all over CHOC for them. Getting Josiah's blood drawn and realizing they didn't draw enough. (they wanted us to go back.. no can do! ) having a REALLY rude receptionist as I was trying to figure out how to drop off the lab( I carried around blood vials with 5 children alone while Huatzin went to look for the keys and was terrified I'd break them. For the life of me, I cannot understand WHY anyone that dislikes people would get a job at CHOC of all places. I almost want to tell her that she might consider a job at the DMV... where people actually EXPECT you to be rude and to be treated poorly.. but CHOC seems like a place you'd work if you generally LIKE INTERACTING WITH others! ;-) Thankfully other employees were much more helpful. All in in, the whole thing was covered in prayer and went better than expected. We were tired but happy. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! Alida & Fam