Infertility affects 1 in 8 people around the country. 1 in 8. That's more common than I realized. You never think about it being YOU. YOU are the one person in 8 that are affected by infertility. Trying to get pregnant, month after month, year after year. It wears on you. Romance is no more. All of your focus is on one thing. Having that baby. My husband and I tried for 3 years. 3 years of disappointments and tears. Why couldn't I get pregnant? Why is that stranger, who doesn't even want a baby, why is she pregnant?? It seemed everyone was announcing a pregnancy on facebook and here we were, in limbo, just waiting for our time to come. We went to get tested. After all of the tests were done, we got the news, we could never have any biological children of our own. Talk about devastating. Our worlds were absolutely crushed. We are talking crushed, absolutely down in the mire grief. We knew we wanted children so after our mourning process was over we decided to talk about our options. We could go traditional domestic adoption, international adoption, foster adoption and the newest, not as widely known option, embryo adoption/donation. Both domestic and international adoption is expensive, plus the wait time is so long. We thought about fostering to adopt. The biggest goal for fostering is reunification with their parents. That's such a hard one for me. I would be so devastated to give back a child, even if the parents have stepped up and did the right thing. It would be the right thing, but the hard thing. Then there is embryo adoption. Wow, to be given the opportunity, I could potentially carry our adopted child, I could bond with him or her from the very beginning. Our hearts were leaning to embryo adoption. You have these tiny beings frozen in cryopreservation, waiting at a chance at life. This is what we chose.
We decided to go with an agency in Tennessee called the National Embryo Donation Center. They seemed so genuine and kind and so willing to help us. We were matched with a fantastic family in Oregon. They have children of their own and they had 5 embryos just waiting for the chance at life. We had to go through a home study. That was completed. Once that was completed, I had to go through a mock transfer. We flew to Tennessee and met the wonderful Dr and Embryologist that work there. I had the mock transfer, I was told I would have a 75% chance of getting pregnant and a 35% chance of having twins. Of course, this gave me hope. The end is on the horizon. I can finally hold my baby.
In the months since then I had to give myself Estrogen and Progesterone shots, make sure my body was ready for pregnancy. Eating healthy and taking my vitamins. Then the day came for transfer. We flew again to Tennessee and spent the night. we were up bright and early anxiously awaiting my 11 am appt. Then the time came. Once I was there, I was whisked to a room with other potential mothers, awaiting our turn for transfer. We decided to thaw 2 embryos and transfer them both. They were thawed 5 hours before transfer. After the transfer. The Dr announced "Congratulations! You're pregnant momma!" Those few words altered my life forever. Now was the hard part, The two week wait. I anxiously awaited my test results the day I had my bloodwork done. I'll never forget the nurse, she called so happy. She said "Congratulations mom! You're going to have a baby!" Best day of our lives.
Fast forward 2 years, we have not one, but two beautiful boys. They are healthy, happy and so loved! We have an open adoption with their biological family and they have wonderful siblings that we can't wait to meet someday soon. I always tell their biological mother and father thank you for giving us the biggest gifts that anyone can give us. They thank us back for giving their embryos the chance at life.
*names have been changed for anonymityÂ