What we've been up to

We officially became 'parents' to our embryos last spring.  But we haven't transferred embryos just yet due to the craziness of life.  Since I'm playing catchup, I figured I might as well throw this little recap of 2014 in here:

-We got to meet K & T in person, along with their kids!  This actually happened last January, before everything was set legally.  They happened to come to town to attend the circus, and were open to meeting us for dinner.  I was humbled that they trusted us to meet their kids, and loved every minute of it!  We met for dinner at a casual restaurant near their hotel, and wound up sitting their for hours chatting.  Matt and I couldn't believe the similarities between us and them.  And the kids were champs, entertaining themselves the whole time and chatting with Matt and I like we were old buddies.  They even gave us each a hug when the family was leaving.  I melted!  If there had been any doubts about EA/ED, I think they left this evening!

- We sadly lost Matt's Grandma W. and my Grandpa P. within 2 weeks.  We like to think we have 2 more people up their supporting us and putting in a good word!  But they sure are missed...

With Matt's Grandma at our wedding

My favorite picture of my Grandma and Grandpa

The bright spot: Getting to see all 22 P. cousins!

-Snowmaggedon in the South= 8 inches of snow

We're prepared!

-My parents and youngest sister visited in June for my cousin's high school graduation

Shared sense of humor

-Maddie (my sister) was able to stay for a full week after the graduation party, and we had a great time showing her around town!

Mini-me

-Had a lot of fun around town, going to baseball games, fireworks, etc.

July 4th fireworks uptown

-We traded in our SUV for a Jeep and had TONS of fun offroading, taking the top off, driving around without doors

No, we won't do this with kids in the car ;)

-Matt's birthday= seafood delight

Lobster Mac n Cheese... drool!

-Boat day with friends!

Boat selfie!

-We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary!

Best day ever!

-I got to head home to NY for Labor Day weekend for a wedding.  Got to spend lots of time with my sisters, parents, Matt's fam and friends.  The weekend went too quick!

Me and my sisters

-Matt and I took a quick weekend trip to Charleston, SC and Folly Beach.  Cloudy days, but beautiful city and beach!

King St, Charleston

Folly Beach, highly recommended!

-Continued our pets' "love" of Halloween!

Don't let that face fool you; she loved it!

-Continued sitting on the floor because our furbabies were too comfortable on the couch (ha)

Too cute too move.

-Rocked an Ugly Christmas Sweater party

Matt will be thrilled I posted this!

-Had a great Christmas visit back in NY.  Got to see my family, Matt's family, extended family, dear friends and their kids.. it was great!

The only picture I've uploaded to my computer from Christmas, oops!

-And in very exciting EA/ED news, found out that fellow recipient couples S&A and L&P are each pregnant!  It is SO exciting know that our little EA/ED family is growing.  You can't imagine how tough it is to wait on our embies knowing that S and L are each expecting now.

Why have we been waiting?  We live 10 hours from 'home.'  We love it here in our current city... but also want to be close to family when we have kids.  Do we move first (including selling a home, buying a new one and finding new jobs), then transfer?  Or do we transfer now and potentially stay here for another year or two?  (Do I have to go on job interviews back home already pregnant?  Will they hire me?)

It is honestly overwhelming to think about.  

But, on to the next steps.  I've been told that if you try to wait until the timing is perfect, it will never happen.  So the process is in motion.  (I'm finally catching up to the present in this blog!)

I have an appointment on Monday, January 26th to get a consult with my fertility doctor!  The practice here does offer embryo donation/ embryo adoption.  But it is typically from couples who have gone through IVF here, with the embryologists here who oversaw everything.  They are open to embryos from outside their clinic, but each situation has to be approved by the doctor and embryologist.  Therefore, I'll bring all of the information I have about our embryos (grading, FDA panel from our donors, etc) and we'll hopefully get approval.  Our embryos are complete rockstars, so we are very confident that it will work out to do the transfer here.  I just can't believe the ball is finally rolling!

(queue happy dance!)

My best friend and my rock :)

End barrage of photos.

"How to adopt an embryo"

Just kidding.

A how-to of embryo adoption/embryo donation could probably fill a book or two, and be outdated before it is even printed.  But in the hopes of someday helping another couple start their family, I will do my best to break it down a bit.

Matching with a donor couple:

Again, easier said than done.  I do recommend researching agencies, fertility clinics, etc.  Some fertility clinics have strong Embryo Donation programs; others may just randomly have a client offer their embryos and it is more random.  There may or may not be the chance to get to know the donating couple (sometimes you only know their anonymous medical history).

I also recommend sites like Miracles Waiting  as that is how we had success.  At less than $200 for the year, this was 'affordable' compared to most things we've paid for throughout the years.

If you are comfortable, announce it on Facebook and other social media!  We didn't announce about EA/ED on Facebook, but we did about traditional adoption a few years ago.  I was stunned by the amount of support we received.  That alone helped us get through some tough times.  And someone who knows someone who knows someone may think of you when they hear that someone is looking to donate.

There are also support groups all over the web for this growing EA/ED community.  I belong to an awesome one on Facebook that is private and allows me to learn, be supported, give support, see success stories and more.  

Once you get in contact with someone who may potentially donate their embryos, a lot of it depends on your gut feelings and what you are looking for in a future relationship with this couple and their family.  Do you want an open relationship or limited/no contact with the couple in the future?  How many embryos are you looking to adopt?  What factors about the couple are important to you?  PLEASE be honest with yourself and the other couple.  At one point, we were talking with a nice couple who wanted more input in our future children's raising than we were comfortable with.  Out of fairness for both couples, we had to step away from that potential match.  This is a lifelong connection you are getting into.

The donating couple may request some information from you as well.  In our case, we were asked for a home study (which we had from trying the traditional adoption route). 

Making it legal:

As of now (January 2015), there are no national rules or laws regarding EA/ED to my knowledge.  Each state has their own rules and most consider the legal process surrounding the adoption/donation as more of a legal transfer of property.  I am not saying that is right or wrong; it just "is."

Because of this, you want to research a lawyer who has experience in EA/ED.  You, your lawyer, the donor couple and their lawyer will put together a contract agreeable to both sides.  In our little group of families, we revised the contract numerous times until all parties were happy.  You need to think about what may happen to any remaining embryos after your family is complete (do you donate them to someone else or does the donor family take them back?  If you donate them, does the donor family get a say in who you pick?), what happens in the event of a divorce of death of the recipient couple, what happens in the event of a medical issue that jeopardizes the life of the recipient woman while pregnant, and on and on.  You don't want to think of important issues after the fact, so take your time with this, ask questions now, make sure you are comfortable with the answers.

Once the contract is complete to everyone's satisfaction, get it notarized, send it to the donor couple's lawyer, they review and then send a copy back to you.  Once the contract is notarized, that is 'it.'  While a joyous time, it also felt a little weird that something so important just came down to a few signatures at the end of the day.

Costs:
There is no payment allowed to the donor couple; you are not 'buying' their embryos.  However, be prepared to pay for certain services as part of EA/ED (besides the medical procedure itself).

-Your lawyer's fee

-The donating couple's lawyer's fee ($600 in our case)

-An FDA panel of bloodwork from the donating couple to give your clinic

-Embryo storage fees (fees depending on timing of when you take 'ownership' of the embryos)

-Shipping fees- if you don't go to the same clinic as the donor couple, you will have to get the embryos shipped to your clinic.  We haven't shipped ours yet, but S and L said it was around $300 in each of their cases I believe.

I know there is so much more I'm leaving out, but will try to update this page if more things come to mind.

I don't have an update yet on the shipping of embryos or the actual medical procedure- yet.  We are close to finally moving down that road we hope!  I'm just trying to catch up to the present time and then hope to be a more faithful blogger.

The "Other Women"

"We're talking to other couples."

When K told me that she and T were talking to other couples, Matt and I freaked out for a moment.  We'd been down this road several times when we were trying to adopt traditionally, and were so worried for what it meant.  Everything had felt so right about this process with us and K & T, and I didn't want to think about another couple being a better fit with them.  But then she clarified the situation, and things got even better than before.

K & T had more embryos than one couple would need.  In fact, they were trying to decide if they should donate to 2 couples, or even 3!  She had actually been talking to one of the couples since before we 'met' and had just started talking with a third couple.  She felt like these matches were meant to be because it was all falling in place.  And she wanted us to chat with the other couples too!

K was right.  S&A (one of the potential recipient couples) and L&P (the other recipient couple) have been amazing to get to know.  Once again, I felt like chatting with S and L was like chatting with girlfriends I'd known forever.  Matt and I have had 100% support throughout our entire pregnancy journey from family and friends, but no one else really "got" EA/ED at this level.  S and L were going through the exact same things at the same time.  We have a great friendship building from this process, and also hope to someday (when the time is right) maybe even be able to have the families meet.  In the short-term though, having S and L to navigate these legal and medical processes with has been a big blessing!  I'll get into that in the next post in case it helps someone looking into EA/ED.

That first email

"Hi, are you still looking for embryos?"

That was the first line in an email that I received on January 11, 2014 from the woman who would eventually donate 4 perfect embryos to us (along with her husband)!

(I know in my last post I said things changed on my birthday on January 9th.  They did- I had a dream overnight that I would be finding out about our baby very soon.  Nothing specific happened in the dream, I just had a peace of mind that it would happen any day now.  So when I got the email, I was shocked... and yet not.)

The email from K and T (the potential donors) went on to say that she had found our profile on Miracles Waiting.  She hadn't created a profile for them as she didn't want to have to turn down couples who may email them.  They wanted to be able to reach out to the couples whose profiles spoke to them.  Something about our profile stuck out to them and made them contact us!

Still not sure how I concentrated on work or anything else for the week after that. Just like in middle school waiting for Matt to call (pre-texting days, dating myself here), I was keeping an eye on the phone all day... and email... and texts.  Luckily, K was just as anxious/excited as I was, so the communication was pretty constant.  The best part: talking to K was like talking to an old friend.  There was the nervousness due to the importance of our conversations, but also the complete ease with talking with her.  It just felt so meant to be, but after years of heartache from trying to start our family, I kept waiting for a catch.  Then after a few days it came.

"There are other couples we're talking to."

It's official!

It is official.

We are the proud parents of 4 embryos that will hopefully become our children some day!  This whole process actually started more than a year ago, but we are just now sharing the good news openly.

Let me take a step back to May 2013 and my last post.

As I mentioned here, Embryo Adoption (or Embryo Donation... we'll call it EA/ED for short) was something we had just heard about.  There are more than 600,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States alone.  These are embryos that were created by couples using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to start their families.  Often more embryos are created than are needed for one procedure.  Some couples use these for future children, some donate to science, some sadly discard, and the rest sit there and wait.

EA/ED is a growing alternative to give these embryos a chance at life.  Though EA/ED has been used for years with great success, it is still not well-known, and we are navigating our own way through every step of the process.  We thought traditional adoption was confusing!

Like traditional adoption, there are agencies that are starting to specialize in EA/ED, matching donor couples with recipient couples.  Unfortunately, like traditional adoption, we feel that the profit these companies are making does not match up with the services provided, especially because the actual medical procedure is not included in the price.  Once again, we were on our own.

We researched websites and agencies and decided upon a site called Miracles Waiting.  This is not an agency but a site that allows potential donors and potential recipients to fill out profiles as a way to match up.  I highly recommend this site to any other couples out there who may read this and are considering EA/ED.  Everything about infertility costs money, but Miracles Waiting felt like a good risk to take as the cost was less than $200 to be listed for a year.  In the grand scheme of things, I felt like that price was ok if it didn't lead to a match.  But if it did, perfect!

We signed up, we worked on the profile for forever, and then we posted it.

And nothing.

We did wind up having some great conversations with others, we learned more about EA/ED, we learned more about what we hoped for in a future agreement with a couple.  We learned that some couples want to be considered co-parents with us (which we respectfully declined).  We learned that others wanted us to live in a certain state or we were out (we're out).  We learned that others wanted no contact whatsoever, even from future children (ugh).

I thought we might be at another dead end.  Until my 31st birthday, January 9th 2014!

About face?

Time for another quarterly check in.  I can never believe how much time passes between posts, but nothing was new to report.  We took a bit of a mental break from the process, as it is very straining emotionally.  If you have not dealt with infertility, you are lucky.  I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.

The break from adoption helped clear our heads a bit.  It also allowed me the chance to do some more research on options.  We have added another path as a potential way to 'adopt,' embryo adoption!

Don't get us wrong- we would still love to talk to expectant mothers and be considered as adoptive parents.  But we also don't believe we should limit ourselves.  We have wanted to be parents for almost 7 years!  (Well, maybe 5 years for Matt.)

Embryo adoption (or donation, seem to be used interchangeably  occurs when a couple has remaining embryos from an IVF cycle.  When they are done having kids themselves, they have 3 options: donate to science, donate to an infertile couple, or have the embryos destroyed.  Without getting into the religious ramifications of those options, we obviously believe that donating to another couple is a fantastic idea!

As with traditional adoption, the donation can be anonymous through a clinic, or you can 'meet' people online and donate to them.  There are adoption agencies out there that now assist with donations as well, but of course they add in several thousand dollars worth of "program fees."   (Important note:  it is illegal to pay or be paid for embryos.  But call them 'program fees,' no problem.  ........)

Some of our considerations now include what clinics to look at (local ones have wait lists, there are some in FL, TN and CA that are well-known that do not, but you have to travel to them), finding donors ourselves (similar to finding our own match for traditional adoption), and whether we'd want an open or anonymous donation (leaning again towards open).  The best part about embryo donation is that the cost is significantly lower than using an adoption agency (about equal to the cost of a private adoption), and significantly cheaper than IVF as well.

So, we are looking into both options now, praying to make a connection with either an expectant mother or a couple looking to donate.  If you know of anyone who fits either bill, please contact us!

And thanks for reading our sporadic posts!

Dirty 30!

So this has been a fun month.  I turned 30, and Matt is still 29, so he has been counting down the days (for months now)!  haha  He loves to point out that I'm the older lady.  Ah well, I love 30!

Celebrating the big 3-0 with my aunt and family friend

One of the best parts of the month was my parents coming down to surprise me the weekend of my birthday!  They flew in (with another aunt and uncle) on Saturday, and had to fly back out on Sunday.  How lucky am I?!  Unfortunately, no pics of that day.

Another thing that I loved about this birthday, and want to make an annual thing was celebrating 30 by doing 30 Random Acts of Kindness.  This was nothing crazy or expensive, just 30 things to make someone else smile or have a good day.  One of my favorites was hiding a $1 bill in the toy bin at Dollar Tree.

Wish I could have seen the kid's face when they found this!

I also asked friends and family on Facebook to join in, and that was the best part--  hearing the stories of what others did.  People bought groceries for strangers, donated baby clothes to a new mom in need, volunteered, held doors, made things, and more.  It was awesome!

Vending machine money, care of Pam C.

Other than the big birthday, it's been a quiet month.  Matt and I both got sick again (after the flu in November, we thought we were good for this season!), so getting over that still.  Matt gets to go home in a few weeks for great friend's wedding.  And we can't wait for the Super Bowl this weekend, even though both of our teams (Giants and Panthers) didn't even make the playoffs this year.  Go commercials!

Team spirit, even though they lose a lot!