The Story So Far (Our Embryo Adoption)

I've mentioned on this blog a few times that my husband and I pursued embryo adoption as a means of growing our family of three (me, him, and the dog) to a family of four. In case you've missed it, we're infertile and our official diagnoses is "unexplained." That doesn't mean that there isn't something wrong, it just means that whatever is wrong cannot be tested for. We've tried using clomid to improve timing (but it's not like that was ever our issue anyway), IUI to also improve timing as well as compensate for sperm motility issues (again, not like that was our issue either), and so the next step along the way would be IVF.

IVF involves hyper-stimulating a woman's ovaries to produce multiple mature follicles and thereby multiple eggs in a single cycle. The eggs are then harvested through a surgical procedure. The man, of course, provides the sperm. In a lab, embryologists combine the "raw materials" to form embryos. The fertilization rate of each IVF cycle varies from couple to couple. The embryos are then monitored for five days; not all survive. Some couples will only come out with a few, if any, viable embryos. Some couples will have over a dozen. A fresh IVF transfer will take one of those embryos and inject it into the mother's uterus via a catheter. They use some kind of solution on the embryo to make it extra "sticky," like a special glue. Within the week, the woman can begin taking home pregnancy tests to determine success. After a week and a half, she'll have a blood test at her clinic.

If the transfer doesn't work and the couple created multiple embryos, they will then move on to transferring embryos which were frozen and stored, if they have any. There are millions of frozen embryos in storage in the US. Some are waiting to be transferred by their biological parents, others are awaiting their destruction or donation to science, and many more are just frozen indefinitely. This is an expensive choice, but couples who have completed their families, having had all the children they want, are at a loss as to what to do with their "leftover" embryos.

This moral and ethical quandary is exactly why my husband and I chose not to pursue IVF--that and the incredibly prohibitive cost (ballpark of $40K, with no guarantees). Of course there's "always adoption" but that can be difficult, disappointing, and even more costly depending on what path you choose. There is no straightforward path to parenthood for the infertile, and traditional adoption isn't a cure-all solution. Of course, we would view an adopted child as much of a "real" child as if we were able to have a biological child. With this perspective, we decided to choose embryo "adoption".

In a legal sense, we have not "adopted" a child. We had no home studies, no lawyer, no involvement with a matching agency (though some embryo "adoption" agencies use this type of model). Instead, we were the recipients of a donation, no different than any other medical tissue. Of course, we don't think of it this way, but the donation model is much cheaper, faster, and easier than the adoption model. After some research, we found a clinic in the metroplex that offers this service with the option of a closed donation. Reserving the embryo was $5K and the procedure to transfer was $3K. There are other costs associated with medications and if you require any procedures beforehand (like a polypectomy, in my case), but all told, a successful embryo transfer of a donated embryo costs less than $15K, much cheaper than the other options. Another benefit, as opposed to traditional adoption, is that I can control the circumstances of my pregnancy. I can make sure I'm taking my prenatals, not doing drugs, exercising, etc, all while feeling the baby grow and change inside of me. Also, embryo adoption/donation addresses the very real issue of all the frozen embryos in storage today. They are being used, given a chance at life, while struggling couples are given the opportunity to become parents. I'd call that a win/win.

Of course, embryo donation does not cure our infertility. At the end of the day, I'm still infertile, even if I'm currently pregnant. I may carry the sadness of infertility for a long time to come, but this child certainly provides a lot of comfort to my situation. I can still grieve the future I imagined for myself, with children that looked like little mixes of me and my husband, while celebrating the life growing inside of me. That grief is totally separate from the joy I have with this pregnancy. We were always open to adoption; we never thought of it as a plan "B" but rather something we hoped to experience regardless of how many biological kids we had. I truly believe that this is the child the Lord had for me. This isn't some consolation prize, contingency, or runner-up child. This is my child, our baby. It doesn't matter who they look like, whose genes they carry. They're mine and I love them.

I'm grateful for the scientific advances that allow me to carry the child of another couple's genetics. I'm grateful for IVF for allowing a path forward for couples with unexplained infertility. I'm grateful to the couples out there who make the selfless decision to allow another family to be blessed by the embryos they've produced. I'm grateful to the specific family that donated our embryo. I'm grateful that they left the option for a closed adoption, which was the path we felt most comfortable with (which I may explain further at a later point). Their generosity and act of love has such a far-reaching impact and I hope they know what a blessing they are. I'll try to do my best to make the most of their amazing gift. I'm grateful to all those who have been praying for the health and success of this pregnancy; it's been felt in my day-to-day life. Finally, I'm grateful to God for overseeing this process. I believe that this was somehow all part of His plan for our lives and I'm so thankful that He chose to bless us in this way.