Contract is sent!

Two days ago we mailed in our adoption contract and largest adoption payment (more on the cost of embryo adoption in my next post). This means that everything will be official very soon and these 4 little embryo babies will be ours! It is exciting to think that we could only be several months away from actually being pregnant and I find myself wondering what the next year will hold. If everything goes as we hope then I could be pregnant at this time next year.

I am really trying to hold everything with an open hand at this point though because I know nothing is guaranteed. I have been reading many blogs about embryo adoption and the vast majority of couples have had success with getting pregnant and having healthy babies but there are a couple that have gone through the process and were never blessed with a baby. I am thankful that we are already parents so we are not putting our hopes of ever being parents into this endeavor, but I really do hope and pray that the Lord allows at least one of these four embryo babies to survive. We trust in His plan for our family and know He will bring the children He wants to us at the right time. If we give this embryo adoption thing a try and don't end up having a full term pregnancy and birth of a child, then at least we tried and we can close this chapter of our infertility journey knowing that birthing a child is maybe just not in the plan for us. I am excited to try! I feel like we are more likely now than ever to actually have this dream happen, so it's a joyful time of anticipation.

In the next several weeks we will be working with the fertility clinic in Michigan to schedule my initial appointment as well as plan out when we will actually do the transfer and what medical steps will need to be taken care of before that can happen. It will definitely be a learning experience because we haven't ever worked with a fertility clinic before now.

Is Embryo Adoption Immoral?

Even before Shaun and I knew we would deal with infertility and before I was even married, I already knew I would never try in-vitro-fertilization as a means of building my family. The idea of creating multiple embryos and then potentially never being able to give birth to them all didn't sit well with me. So, when we began considering embryo adoption, which seems very similar to IVF in many ways, I had to wrestle with the morality of reproductive technology again. I came across an article that addressed my main questions and I want to share it with you today.

By Russell Moore

I received an email from a man who was upset about a couple in his extended family who are pursuing a so-called "snowflake adoption," the adoption of a "frozen embryo" (to use, for clarity's purpose only, the satanically clinical lingo of the current era). This couple had been led to do this after reading Adopted for Life, so he wanted to correspond.

How, he wondered, could I support this kind of adoption when I am opposed (and I am, strongly) to in vitro fertilization (IVF), donor assisted reproduction, and other technologies that violate the one-flesh union and the relationship between love and procreation.The same thing, he argued, is going on here with a donor embryo being implanted in an adopting mother's womb.

First of all, there is no such thing as a "donor embryo."

Someone can donate sperm or ovum or even a heart or a liver, but no one can "donate" an "embryo." No one can "own" an "embryo." An "embryo" isn't a thing; he or she is a "who." Our Lord Jesus is the pinnacle of the image of God (Heb. 1:1-3). He was an "embryo" (Luke 1:42-43). The "embryonic" John responded to our Lord's "embryonic" presence in precisely the same way he responded to his adult presence on the banks of the Jordan River.

These so-called "snowflakes" are brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus are stored in cryogenic containers in fertility clinics as the "extras" of IVF projects. They already exist, and the already exist as persons created in the image of God.

And there are Christians called to adopt them, to bring them to birth through pregnancy, and to raise them in love. To be sure, the numbers of children who can be adopted in this way are a microscopic percentage of the whole. And the numbers even of those who can be safely brought to birth is even smaller.

Isn't this simply an embrace of the kind of "Brave New World" Frankenstein technology we elsewhere lament?

No.

Adopting parents are not complicit in the "production" (I shudder to type such a horrible word in reference to a human creature) of these children. Again, the children are already conceived. The adopting parents are no more endorsing the technologies involved than parents adopting from an unwed mother are endorsing fornication or adultery.

Embryo adoption also doesn't carry with it the violence to the one-flesh union that comes with surrogacy or sperm donation, in which one spouse's genetic marterial is joined with a stranger's.

Embryo adoption would be problematic if the adoptions themselves became a further commodity in the buying and selling transactions of the reproductive technology business or if these adoptions were a widespread incentive for couples to justify the decision to "create" and freeze additional embryos. This is not, though, presently the case and doesn't appear to be likely to become so anytime soon.

http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/russellmoore/is-embryo-adoption-immoral-11626568.html

Beginning the process

In continuation of my last post, I want to summarize how the process of embryo adoption has looked for us up to this point. First, we spent time praying about the direction the Lord wanted us to go because we did desire to grow our family with at least one more child. Our hopes of a biological child, after 4 1/2 years of infertility, are pretty much gone. We know if it is God's will for our family then it will happen someday, but I am starting to believe more and more that we were given a heart for babies who are already in existence for a reason. Maybe we are meant to love and raise children who the Lord has already created and given a soul, rather than create our own little ones. If that is the case, we joyfully accept the call, although the journey to get to this place has been difficult, sad, and full of grief. Our first two children, adopted through foster care, are proof that genetics has nothing to do with the love we have for our kids and we honestly wouldn't change our story even if we had the chance to do so.

Anyway, we started learning more about embryo adoption through the adoption agency that started it all back in 1997. If you are at all interested in learning more, check out their website at http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakes-embryo-donation-adoption/

We were really struck by a few things, first being the fact that these are babies whom God has given life to. They are already on earth and simply need to be given a chance at life. Second, there are over 500,000 frozen embryos in this country alone! And third, I would be able carry a child, providing the safe, healthy environment I so strongly believe in, through 9 months of pregnancy, and then get to experience child birth and breastfeeding. Pregnancy was certainly not the number one reason we were drawn to embryo adoption, but it was an exciting possibility after so many years of infertility. I have had years of longing to go through all the things a woman is supposed to be able to do with her body.

One thing that really helped to finalize our decision was the fact that our foster care agency graciously said they would send our newly completed homestudy to the adoption agency. This was huge because it would save us several months time as well as about $2000! It seemed that the Lord was opening the door for us to proceed with what was now becoming a pretty exciting possibility for building our family!

So, we officially began the embryo adoption process by sending in our application fee on March 18th. We then created a family profile that included a letter to the genetic family and a four page summary of who we are, including pictures. We decided right away that we want to have at least some degree of openness with the genetic family so whatever children we are blessed with will be able to have knowledge of their biological family. All the current research has shown that adopted children are better off emotionally and psychologically when they have access to this information.

It didn't take long for our homestudy to get transferred, and then all I needed was to get a document signed by my doctor stating that I can safely carry a child. Once all that was sent in, we had a matching interview with the adoption agency to make sure we would be matched with a family who fits our specific preferences. That interview was on Friday, April 25th, and by Wednesday, April 30th, we had received the information about a genetic family who had chosen us. It was astounding to see how quickly the match was made! Embryo adoption has the opposite problem that infant adoption has, and that is there are more genetic families that adoptive families, so getting matched does not take long!

We spent an evening praying about whether or not to accept the match, but there were no red flags going up in our hearts or minds, so the next morning we contacted our agency and said we would like to accept the match. Right now, we are waiting to hear more on what local clinic embryos will be shipped to. We have never worked with a fertility clinic so we are about to enter uncharted territory. It will be at least September before we can actually have our first embryo transfer done and I am unsure about what the next steps will be. Most likely there will be several preliminary medical tests required to make sure my body is good to go.

Reviving the blog

I am reviving this blog which has lay dormant for over a year. The reason? Shaun and I are embarking on an exciting adventure that we believe more people need to be educated about. What is this little known endeavor? Something called embryo adoption.

What is embryo adoption? Well, here is my summary of this new and exciting form of adoption:

Basically, when an infertile couple decided to do in-vitro-fertilization in hopes of having biological children, there are embryos created. Embryos are tiny little babies which are then either implanted into the woman, or frozen for future use when more children are desired. Once a couple has achieved pregnancy and have had as many children as they desire, there are often times extra embryos that are still frozen. What to do with these tiny embryo babies is a big deal to someone who believes life begins at conception.

The choices a couple is left with are to keep them frozen forever, destroy them, donate them to science, or give them to another couple through embryo donation/adoption. The decision to allow another couple to adopt their embryo babies can be a difficult choice to make, but one that is honoring to God, who has given life to the embryos in the first place. It is really incredible that these babies can be frozen for years and then when given a chance, become a full grown baby with purpose and meaning in life.

So, that is the direction the Lord has led Shaun and I after losing another newborn foster baby in February. We thought foster care was the direction we would go to add more children to our family, but it became very clear in February after baby T came and went, that we were no longer being called to foster care. It really astounds me to think back on beginning our journey through foster care, and how much peace we had. We endured a long 25 month case before our twin girls became ours legally, but though it all we never doubted that it was what we were supposed to be doing. Now, I know exactly why we had such peace though an incredibly emotional 2 years. We were intended to be Katie's and Addie's parents, and in the Lord's perfect timing we were there waiting for them when they needed a home.

Now, we anticipate meeting our future children, knowing that God has a perfect plan once again. We have moved quickly through the preliminary steps of embryo adoption, and once we were approved to be matched with a genetic family, it only took 3 days to be matched! We are very excited about what the future holds, and we pray that the genetic family is filled with much peace during this time as they are entrusting their genetic offspring into our care. I will follow with more details on the process up to this point in my next post. It's good to be back in the blogging world!