My First Time Giving Blood: What Really Happens

I’d wanted to give blood for as long as I can remember, but there was always a reason I couldn’t. In my early twenties it was tattoos and piercings, and more recently it’s been pregnancies and having young babies. Back in 2016, I noticed a donation campaign online and realised that, finally, I could actually go and do it.

Here’s exactly what happened the first time, taken from a diary entry I wrote on another blog at the time, plus an honest update on what’s happened since.

Booking an appointment

I downloaded the donation app, which made finding a session really easy. The slightly annoying part was that there was nothing available at weekends near me, and I couldn’t make weekday appointments work around looking after my children during the day and working in the evenings. I found a Sunday slot about 40 minutes away and decided the extra distance was worth it.

The drive there and back, plus the time in the chair, ended up being a genuinely lovely bit of time to myself. Forty minutes each way listening to music alone, followed by fifteen minutes lying down while they took the blood, was honestly one of the most relaxing things I’d done in ages. Some proper alone time and “me time,” away from busy mum life or busy work life, even if it came about in the most unexpected way. Not what I expected from a blood donation appointment.

What happens before you donate

Before anything else, they take a tiny pin-prick of blood from your finger to check your iron levels. If needles or pain worry you, it stings for a fraction of a second and that’s it. I’ve never been bothered by needles or pain at all, so that’s never been a factor for me – if anything ever puts me off giving blood, it’s almost always logistics rather than the process itself.

My iron levels were good, which was a relief. With my second pregnancy I’d had pregnancy-related anaemia, and being vegetarian at the time I did wonder whether people might assume that was the cause – but it was almost certainly just the pregnancy itself. I’d never been retested since, so it was reassuring to know my levels were back to normal. Iron is one of the nutrients people often ask about when eating a plant-based diet, and this was good evidence that a varied vegetarian or vegan diet can support healthy iron levels just fine.

You’ll also fill in a health questionnaire covering things like travel history, medical history, and lifestyle questions. This is standard for every donor and helps keep the blood supply safe. Eligibility criteria can change over time, so if you’re not sure whether you’re able to donate, the official donation service website will have the most current information.

How long does giving blood actually take?

They tell you to allow around an hour for the whole appointment, which made me assume the donation itself would take a while. In reality, for most people it takes somewhere around five to ten minutes. Mine took the full fifteen minutes, which is the maximum time they allow.

I have notoriously thin veins – every blood test I’ve ever had has been a bit of a mission, sometimes needing a smaller needle, sometimes needing more than one attempt to find a vein at all. So it wasn’t hugely surprising that mine decided to be difficult on the day too.

Does it hurt?

They found a good vein in my right arm and the needle went in without issue. There’s a sharp scratch as it goes in, lasting no more than a second, and then nothing. While the blood is being taken you keep squeezing your hand and tensing your leg and bottom muscles, which helps keep things flowing and your blood pressure steady.

Mine kept slowing down or stopping altogether. Near the end the flow stopped completely, the nurse adjusted the needle to get it going again, and then the machine beeped to say time was up just as it started flowing properly. They weigh the bag afterwards because there’s a minimum amount needed for the donation to be usable – mine was borderline but they thought it would be fine.

What it’s actually like overall

Genuinely, it’s nowhere near as daunting as it sounds. If you’re not bothered by needles, as I’m not, there’s really nothing to it beyond a brief scratch. And if needles do worry you, the actual moment of discomfort is so short that it’s over before you’ve had much time to think about it.

There’s also a proper snack table at the end – biscuits, crisps, chocolate, and a drink of your choice. I’d brought my own snacks (some Nakd bars and a bag of Organix crisps) and had a glass of water, but you could easily make a small treat of the whole experience.

What happened next – my honest update

I did go back for a second appointment a few months later, again travelling to a session at a similar distance away. This time my iron levels were too low to donate. The nurse reassured me it was likely just down to where I was in my menstrual cycle and nothing to worry about, but I couldn’t donate that day.

After driving all that way for a 1.5 hour round trip plus the appointment itself – really needing half a day set aside each time – and then not being able to donate, it put me off going again. It wasn’t a decision against donating in principle, it was purely the logistics of it. If I’d been turned away from somewhere five minutes from home it wouldn’t have mattered. But making that whole journey for nothing made it feel like too much of a commitment to repeat regularly.

Honestly, after that I sort of forgot about it for a long time. Life moved on, we moved to Cornwall, and donating blood wasn’t something on my radar.

It’s come back into my mind recently, though, and I looked into sessions near where we live now – only to find there isn’t currently a venue nearby, so I’d be facing the same travel issue all over again.

It does make me wonder why donation sessions aren’t more often held somewhere like a local health centre or GP surgery. I imagine a lot of people would be keen to donate if it were genuinely local and didn’t require setting aside half a day and a long drive. For people without a car, or with mobility issues, or who simply can’t get the time off, that barrier probably stops a lot of willing donors from ever giving at all.

I’d still like to donate again at some point. I never actually found out whether my first donation was usable in the end, given how borderline the weight was, and my second attempt wasn’t successful either due to low iron. So realistically, I might not have a single successful donation to my name yet despite trying twice. If I’m going to make it work, it really would need to be somewhere local and far less of an inconvenience than it has been so far.

Now that it’s back in my mind I’ll have a proper look into what’s available. If you’ve been putting it off purely because of logistics like I was, you’re definitely not alone – but if there’s a session somewhere reasonably convenient, it really is worth the relatively small amount of time it takes. Your blood could genuinely save someone’s life.

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This is a personal account of my own experience. Eligibility criteria for blood donation can change and vary, so always check the official donation service for current guidance before booking an appointment.