Needing support in 2WW with our adopted embies

#1

Hello ladies,
It has been really busy.Well good news we had our transfer today! we transfered 2 blasts. They were 2AA and 3AA but they thawed them last night and by this morning one of them was hatching:woohoo: and the doc said it looked really good. the other one survived but is only ok he said. So now we wait till Monday the 20TH for my BETA. I am :pray: :pray: :pray: :pray: that this is finally our time and that we are going to be blessed with a little one.

This is our story sorry it is a little long.

We started in late March looking into Embryo Adpoption and we found a wonderful place called Embryos Alive. The Lady that runs it name is Bonnie. She is Amazing. We looked at the embryos that were available and found some we liked. Then once we decided the embryology reports were sent to our doctor for review. Once the doctor gave us the all good we told bonnie. From there we had to have our packet of infomation sent to her which included everything that a normal homestudy would involve. Bonnie then sent it on to the donor family for them to review and decide if they want to be matched with us. And THEY DID!! it was a quick decision on thier part which was awesome. From there we have to send in the second part of the packet which it the contract and legal stuff. Since the US sees embryos as tissue and not a baby it is a lefal contract of donation rather than a true adoption.

Once we had all that signed and we paid of the administrative fees and storge and shipping fees our 2 embies were on thier way. After they arrived we started our FET cycle.

#2

Many sticky vibes to you!!!

I really urge you to consider your wording on this process. Embryos Alive, while I’m sure are caring, are also an organization that has a hidden agenda of establishing personhood rights at conception.

Embryos are not legally babies and if they were to be declared so by the law this would be devastating to infertility treatments as we know them today. Many women would no longer be able to have children because doctors would be too afraid of litigation to help them out. Not to mention policies for IVF and surplus embryo freezing and storage would be altered dramatically.

But MOST importantly, if you are blessed to have children, are you going to tell them they are adopted? I hope not because that implies that they were either given up or taken away from their birth parents. YOU are going to be their birth parents. I am a mother to twins born through EMBRYO DONATION. My donors and I have an open identity donation and even THEY say I am the biological mother. I carried those embryos and grew them into babies using my body and my own dna even. Those babies are now toddlers that have a unique and new place in this world as children through embryo donation.

Like many of the ED families I know, my children have an uncanny resemblance to me and my family. Even the donors were stunned when they met them. THere is a science behind all of this called epigenetics and many recent studies are showing that the dna of the baby can be found in the birth mother and the dna of the mother (and other prior siblings) can be found in the baby. What the birth mother eats, how her pregnancy goes, and her own dna and family’s dna are all working together to define and build that baby.

So, while it is truly a miracle brought about by the kind and gracious gift of life from another family. It.Is.Not.Adoption!

#3

Daniellm,
My thoughts & Prayers are with you:-) wishing you a BFP tomorrow. Keep us posted.:cross: :bsv:

#4

[quote=silverbrumby]Many sticky vibes to you!!!

I really urge you to consider your wording on this process. Embryos Alive, while I’m sure are caring, are also an organization that has a hidden agenda of establishing personhood rights at conception.

Embryos are not legally babies and if they were to be declared so by the law this would be devastating to infertility treatments as we know them today. Many women would no longer be able to have children because doctors would be too afraid of litigation to help them out. Not to mention policies for IVF and surplus embryo freezing and storage would be altered dramatically.

But MOST importantly, if you are blessed to have children, are you going to tell them they are adopted? I hope not because that implies that they were either given up or taken away from their birth parents. YOU are going to be their birth parents. I am a mother to twins born through EMBRYO DONATION. My donors and I have an open identity donation and even THEY say I am the biological mother. I carried those embryos and grew them into babies using my body and my own dna even. Those babies are now toddlers that have a unique and new place in this world as children through embryo donation.

Like many of the ED families I know, my children have an uncanny resemblance to me and my family. Even the donors were stunned when they met them. THere is a science behind all of this called epigenetics and many recent studies are showing that the dna of the baby can be found in the birth mother and the dna of the mother (and other prior siblings) can be found in the baby. What the birth mother eats, how her pregnancy goes, and her own dna and family’s dna are all working together to define and build that baby.

So, while it is truly a miracle brought about by the kind and gracious gift of life from another family. It.Is.Not.Adoption![/quote]

Embryos [B]are[/B] babies if you believe life begins at conception. (like I do) and perhaps docs & people should be thinking more about how many babies they are creating and what they plan to do with them BEFORE they actually do it! (that’s a whole nother subject for a different thread) anyways, so, while this process is not adoption in the traditional sense of the word, (a breathing, screaming, newborn baby) she may call it like she sees it.

OP- Good luck with the 2 ww. :cross: its stressful. I see you have been doing domestic infant adoption also. don’t give up, your baby is out there- we waited for 2 years but our DS was well worth it!!!
a year later we tried embryo donation and got pg on our first try. Im now typing one handed trying to hold my DD while my DS is asleep in the swing. they are 1 month old and we couldnt be any happier.

#5

Where you fall in the debate over whether an embryo is a baby really is irrelevant. What matters is that adoption is defined in our culture as someone else carrying and giving birth and then giving up their baby. Donation involves someone giving an egg, sperm, or embryo to someone else to carry and give birth to. If you were to get pregnant through an embryo created by using a donor egg and donor sperm would you call that an adoption? Is an egg donation a partial-adoption? When your child is older are you going to tell them they are adopted? The scientific reality of embryo donation is that being pregnant and growing the baby inside you impacts the development process and gene expression. That child becomes a physical part of you and you help determine its characteristics and you give birth to it. It is NOT adoption. It is an amazing gift from one family to another but it deserves its own category, not to be treated like an adoption for the sake of a prolife agenda trying to set legal precedence for personhood.

#6

Good luck tomorrow!

Directing the convo back to the OP who requested support for her blood test tomorrow… Good luck!!!

Please let us know how it goes. I have a phone consult Tuesday, and then I’m hopeful for a June FET, so I love success stories! :slight_smile: :cross:

#7

Hey everyone,
thanks for all of the responses. I know that this is a hot topic for debate but I want everyone to know that we all have the right to our own thoughts. I do not wish to change anything about the process I think it is fine as is. I feel that adoption is not clear cut and black and white. You can adopt a child that is already born or you can adopt an embryo. Let me ask this one questions. if you went through IVF and you and your significant other (or sperm donor whatever the case may be) have embryos left after you have had all the children that you want to complete your family. Would you not consider those embryos your children and would you not want to know that they went to a good home? They are obviously very important to you becuase you are wanting them to have a chance at life. so you dont want them donated to someone who will use them for research or who will put them all back and then have selective reduction. You want a family that would love them like you would had you transfered them and carried them to term.

the family that you donate them to will have children who are biologically related (Blood related) to each other. So to some people it is a giving up of a potiential child(ren) and sibling to thier kids. so some call it adoption, some dont.

Back to the orginal reason that i posted here tomorrow is BETA and i am so scared that it did not work. but i am keeping my thoughts in check and wishing for the best.:pray: :bfp:

#8

Well, how did your BETA turn out?? Hopefully it was good!!! :cross: :cross: :cross:

#9

Everything crossed for your beta!!

As for your question, I did donate some of the embryos that were donated to me. My donors and I have an open agreement but our contract clearly stated that the embryos, once mine, were mine to donate, etc as I saw fit. However, we both agreed that destroying them was not what we wanted and that I would take their thoughts and feelings into consideration when I decided. I made my decision based on someone who desperately had been trying to have a family. We probably do not share the same views on many things, and honestly I did not ask.

My donors did not ask me either. We have different views on many things. They are very Southern bible belt CHristian and conservative. I am an agnostic greenie libertarian. I can honestly say, after many conversations with the donor wife, that she does not consider my children “hers”. Nor does she consider this an adoption. If you look at photos of my kids, there is clearly something biological/genetic going on during pregnancy. Our families are forever intwined, and honestly if I had to advise people on this process, I’d say this is the way to go. My kids never have to wonder where they came from or what their biological roots are.

As for adoption versus donor terminology and the future of the legal questions around this. I do not believe this is a “personal” matter. The social norms that develop surrounding terminology, culture, and laws of embryo donation and the families it creates are all things that will affect my family and how my children see themselves when they are older. I don’t want them to grow up thinking they are adopted. Full stop. So that is why I am fairly outspoken on this subject. I believe that the agencies that are out there trying to set a legal precedence by calling it adoption, and making money for their personhood cause on the backs of people desperate to build a family, really troubles me.

So, for me, donation is the greatest gift one family can give another but it is not adoption. It is not me raising their children. Even my donors said to me “You are their biological mother because your body gave them life and grew them and nurtured them and if that isn’t biology then what is”… the donors family share genetic heritage with my children and we are bonded by their gift to me. I can only wish for all families seeking embryos to be as lucky as I was to to find my donors, so of course, when I had additional embryos left, I felt it was the right thing to do, to give someone else this gift.

#10

Part of it may be a difference in how you view adoption. If I adopted a newborn or a child, I would be HORRIFIED if someone suggested I was raising “someone else’s” child. Once I adopt, that child becomes my child and I become that child’s mother.

I see myself as my daughter’s biological mother, but I also know she has a [I]genetic[/I] mother and father and siblings out there somewhere.

In my own vocabulary I use the term “embryo adoption” because that’s what I did. I adopted an embryo. I can adopt an attitude, I can adopt a puppy, I can adopt a child, and I can adopt an embryo. Embryo adoption is very different from child adoption, but when you take something and make it yours, you adopt it. No matter what it is. That’s just what the word means. There aren’t any other words in the English language that describe the process better. The genetic parents, however, [I]donated[/I] the embryos. And no, I don’t intend to describe my daughter as my “adopted” daughter. That would be misleading, because it’s not how she came to be. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t adopt the embryo which eventually became who she is today.

Interestingly, she bears an uncanny resemblance to me and my husband and our other children, both in a physical sense and in temperament. We have never seen pictures of her genetic family, so it’s kind of shocking. I have been stopped by total strangers who have just had to remark how much my daughter looks like me. Our boys from my previous marriage are aware of the embryo donation/adoption and we speak of it openly in the home. For personal reasons, my husband chose not to disclose this information to his girls from his first marriage, who are both grown and therefore don’t live with us. They are CONSTANTLY commenting about how our daughter got this trait or that trait from their dad or their grandmother or whatever.

If our latest attempt sticks, it will be even more interesting because I have met the genetic mother and seen pictures of her children. The genetic father is an anonymous sperm donor but there’s some potential through donor registries to connect with other genetic siblings from that side as well, if we feel the need to do that in the future. I don’t think the genetic mother or her children look anything at all like our family, so I’m not expecting as much of an uncanny resemblance this time, but we’ll see.

Anyway, to the OP, I hope everything works out great for you. :slight_smile: Best of luck!

#11

Hi ladies, I believe my FET w/normal chromosome embryos is a failure. I’m devasted and looking for a back up plan. My DH and I are considering embryo adoption or another round of IVF but outside the States. For we just can’t afford a third round here in the US.

If you ladies don’t mind sharing your info I would greatly appreciate it. Like…cost, process time, can you do gender selection, are they all PGD normal, can you see what the parents look like, etc? But mainly cost and location is what I’m looking at. If we did IVF I’m not sure where to go…maybe Mexico? Thanks for your time and support.