Blog 6 of 6: Snowflakes!
/
There are over a million embryos on ice in the United States.
To recap, in September 2014, we started trying for babies. A year later, the endometriosis pain began, and I had surgery that December. I spent 2016 terrified of the endo pain returning, and we started fertility medications and treatments. 2017 broke me emotionally and financially as we continued through 6 failed IUIs before moving to IVF which also failed. I went through a very dark time, but by the end of 2018, I was rebuilding myself, and my doctor put me on continuous birth control to prevent the endometriosis from spreading. In 2019 I published several books and incorporated some of our fertility struggles into one of my novels. By the beginning of 2020, we were ready to try growing our family again, but before I get into that, let me tell you about a woman I crossed paths with in 2018.
I was fresh out of my failed IVF and still telling people I couldn’t have children. My bitterness was pretty much eating me alive. At this opportune time, a woman walked into my life with her five-year-old twins. Annoyed, I thought, well, here’s another woman who probably doesn’t appreciate her precious children. Oh, how bitter and wrong I was! Please remember, I was not my best self.
I don’t know how it came up, but we started talking about infertility, and she began telling me about her struggle. Guys, the number of years and fertility treatments it took her to get her miracle twins was sobering. She was so kind and straightforward. It turned out her precious twins were a result of embryo donation. I’d only just learned of snowflake adoption/donation two months prior, and this angel of a woman with her perfect embryo-adopted children just fell into my lap. She was telling me all about it while her twins played quietly. They even looked like her. Epigenetics is a real thing! I won’t get into it, but it’s worth looking up.
It felt like confirmation that this was definitely our next step. Do you know what else this angel of a woman did for me? She invited me to my first Facebook support group. I can’t thank her enough for her encouragement and willingness to share her story. Without her, I would not be where I am today. I’m so grateful we met when we did.
In December 2019, two years after our failed IVF, I was ready to move forward with our next steps in growing our family. I had just published Pink f*cking Moscato, and our struggles and triumphs were fresh in my mind.
I looked through all of our options again, and my husband and I again decided embryo adoption was right for us. I had been in an embryo adoption group on Facebook for nearly two years, and I’d learned a lot about the process and options. I also joined adoption groups and foster care groups to see if these were things we should pursue. I tend to paint a pretty picture in my mind, but I wanted to be realistic. Our hearts kept directing us to embryo donation, so that’s the route we went.
First, you must understand what an embryo is. This might sound like biology 101, but we’ve come to realize a lot of people use embryos and eggs interchangeably. There is a significant difference.
Eggs = half the embryo’s DNA
Sperm = half the embryo’s DNA
Once the sperm fertilizes an egg, you have an Embryo.
There are over a million embryos on ice in the United States. Couples who go through IVF sometimes end up with more embryos than they want children, then they are left to decide what to do with those remaining snowflakes. They can pay to keep their remaining embryos frozen, have them destroyed, donate them to science, or donate to couples/individuals trying to grow their families. The people who have been through IVF know how difficult this journey is and can give a chance to couples still waiting to complete their families.
There are a few ways to go about receiving embryos. Different countries have different rules, so the following is based in the United States. There are adoption agencies in place to match couples with snowflakes. Some clinics offer embryos donated from previous patients (there is generally a waiting list, and this is usually anonymous only). You can also match privately, which means finding a couple who has embryos to donate. Lastly, you can create embryos using donated sperm and donated eggs.
When I first looked into adopting snowflakes in 2018, I thought we would go through an agency. There were extra costs associated with going through an agency, and they have rules and restrictions. I think they all make you get home visits and so on, but I figured that was the only way to find embryos. But by January 2020, I had learned so much more from being a part of the embryo adoption community. I like to do my research because I want to know what to expect and be prepared.
One thing I really wanted to know is how did these embryos feel about being donated. Hear me out! I’m not about to go hover over a Petri dish filled with microscopic bundles of genetic materials and ask how they feel. I wanted to talk to the embryos who grew to become adults. I needed to hear their stories, so I searched what donor-conceived people had to say about their conception. Of course, every individual is different, but there seemed to be a reoccurring theme for most. They didn’t want to be lied to. Who does? We plan to be honest and open from the beginning, but it wasn’t always common practice to tell a child they were adopted or that their biological father was a sperm donor and not the man who raised them. With all the genetic tests out there these days, the shit is hitting the fan in a big way. We’re talking people in their fifties finding out they were adopted or donor-conceived. The betrayal is real, and it’s shattering relationships. Hiding it implies shame about how they were conceived, and imagine the trust issues you would have after finding out your parents lied to you your entire life. My heart breaks for these families.
Another repeating theme for many donor-conceived people is a deep craving to know where their biology came from. They may be thrilled to be adopted, but there is still a deep desire to understand where they came from. Most of them want to contact their biological parents at some point in their life without feeling guilt from the parents who raised them.
This was a difficult concept for me at first because I worried my husband and I would be in competition with their genetic family. This is a selfish way of looking at it because it’s not about how much my child will love me. It’s about loving them. And wouldn’t I want my future children to feel comfortable asking where they came from? Or better yet, I could tell them from the beginning so they always knew and would be comfortable asking more specific questions. This was when I knew I wanted our child’s biological parents to be open to meeting them someday. So closed (anonymous)adoption was out of the question for us. Still, I also wasn’t comfortable with an open adoption because I was concerned that I’d feel like the donors were always looking over our shoulders. Some distance felt like a good thing, so a semi-open adoption seemed ideal.
We decided to try to match privately through one of the closed Facebook groups. There were sections for embryo donors and embryo recipients. I looked through all the donor profiles and found a few I liked, but little things kept me from reaching out to them. My favorite profile was already pending a match, but I had known going in that it might take some time to match with the right people. My husband was all cocky about it and said, “I bet this is going to go fast.” I just rolled my eyes and wrote up our profile. It was super strange—sort of like an online dating profile only with intimate medical history.
I put our profile up on the 10th, and on the 12th, I started working on a second profile for an embryo matching community with monthly fees. We were serious about looking, but we didn’t have all our ducks in a row yet, so I waited. On the 13th, I called and scheduled a consultation with the fertility clinic my gynecologist had recommended. I got my records from the previous fertility specialist, and I swear I had a mini anxiety attack just stepping foot back into that office.
Later that day, I got a message from our first-choice donors, the donors from the pending profile we really liked. They asked if we would be interested in their two remaining embryos. They had already donated their other embryos to another family. I had a lot of thoughts at once and got excited. We messaged back and forth with the donors, talking about our beliefs on modern medicine, family medical history, the quality of my uterus—not even joking. We spoke about all those controversial things you usually avoid when first meeting someone. We planned to have an open/semi-open relationship with this family, so open communication was essential, and I immediately felt comfortable with them. Fortunately, we seemed to be on the same page with everything, and they offered us their embryos. It felt too easy, like it was all happening too fast, just like my husband said it would. Breath held, I waited for the other shoe to drop. I was afraid to trust anything that seemed too good.
I asked if we could have a day to think and pray about it, and they said absolutely. I didn’t want to jump into something too quickly, and we were hoping to get more than two embryos because they don’t always turn into babies, and we wanted the chance to have genetic siblings. While we were deciding, another family contacted us about their eight embryos. I felt a little guilty having more than one option when so many others were looking. I messaged with the second donors, and although the embryos were of excellent quality, we didn’t feel the same connection we felt with the first family. That connection is vital, so we went with our gut and moved forward with the first donors and their two precious embryos.
It turns out matching was the easy part for us. Then we had to deal with lawyers writing up a legal contract and the donor’s clinic shipping the embryos to our new clinic. It was a process, and I still hadn’t met with our new fertility doctor.
Our first appointment at the new clinic was less traumatic than the previous office, but I left feeling overwhelmed. The doctor encouraged us not to switch to donor embryos too soon. He called our old doctor a hack and felt confident he could give us genetic children. He had many valid facts that could back his claim, but my egg reserve had taken a hit since our IVF cycle three years prior. We had moved past having genetic children, and that door being thrust back open had me in a tailspin. I wanted our adopted embryos but having genetic children made more sense, didn’t it?
I left feeling confused and worried. We were in the process of getting our snowflakes, and now my plan was shaky at best. It made no sense that I wanted these adopted embryos more than our own, but I did, yet my husband was still hopeful for genetic children.
Some people have asked why we didn’t go with an egg donor and use my husband’s sperm. There are a few reasons. The doctors didn’t actually know the problem and why IVF hadn’t worked the first time. They suspected my eggs were of poor quality even though my labs were good. My husband’s labs were good, but it could’ve been his sperm. We just didn’t know and making embryos is the most expensive part of IVF. We didn’t have the money to play around and see what worked. Some women I’ve talked to have done six egg retrievals back-to-back in order to get quality embryos. For us, that would be at least $70,000 out of pocket. We didn’t have it in us to go that route, and using an egg donor is also an extra expense with no guarantee.
My husband and I also agreed that we wanted all or none. Either our child will carry both of our genes or none. Every couple is different, but this works for us. We went around and around about whether to try IVF again or stick with the donor embryos, but eventually, we closed the door on IVF for good and signed all the official paperwork to adopt our two snowflakes.
If these embryos turn into babies, that means I will give birth to a baby that does not share my DNA. My husband and I will be their adoptive/birth parents, which is a pretty crazy and absolutely amazing concept. Our baby will have full biological siblings they can choose to meet one day, as well as biological parents who are already rooting for them. These little embryos already have so many people to love them.
As soon as we took “custody” of the embryos, Covid hit, so we delayed moving forward and have been paying rent for our embabies at the fertility clinic. The delay lasted longer than expected, but finally, the process is beginning. We had our embryos tested this spring, and they came back genetically normal, which tells us they are more likely to grow into healthy babies. We are cautiously excited. Cautious because the embryos might not implant in my uterus and excited because they might! So wish us luck this summer as we move forward and try once more to grow our family one precious adopted embryo at a time.
Pineapples are a symbol often used for women fighting infertility (especially IVF) for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is because Pineapple contains a mix of enzymes called bromelain, known for decreasing inflammation and removing scar tissue.
My husband and I feel very blessed to have such supportive people in our lives. I know not everyone’s family is as accepting as ours, and it breaks my heart to hear how cruel some can be. People have said I’m brave for sharing my story, but I’ve had so much emotional support. The people around me have given me the courage to speak up, and I’m so grateful for them. Many individuals aren’t so lucky. They are shamed for their infertility, for adopting, for never wanting children, or for wanting a family that looks different from the family they were born into. Some are fighting these battles alone or fighting against their families for something that means everything to them. Be an ally. A supportive friend might just be the lifeboat they didn’t know they needed.