Jenna wanted to share about their journey Embryo Adoption: the what and the why. So she wrote this for us:
If you were to give your life in numbers what would it look like? What would you include? Number of years married? Number of addresses you’ve lived at? How many jobs/pets/cars you’ve had? Our life in numbers looks a little like this: 14 years together, 11 years married, 9 different addresses, 8 failed adoption/infertility treatment attempts, 7 children I’ve held in my arms and had to let go, 4 cats, 3 adoption scams, 2 hearts, 1 love. Some of those numbers are high… 9 different addresses?! What can I say? I have a bit of the wanderlust.
The three numbers that stick out to me are 8,7, & 3. These are heart breaking numbers but heartbreak and adoption are all tangled in each other. My heart breaks because her heart breaks. The birth mother’s pain is not always taken into account but it has been a factor that David and I have never been comfortable with.
In 1996 there were 23,537 domestic infant adoptions. In 2007 only 18,078. The number of babies available for adoption is decreasing. What is NOT decreasing is the number of families hoping to adopt. There is a lot of competition privately and in agencies to find an expectant mother who is looking to place. In the end 1 less couple isn’t going to cause an impact.
Let’s look at another number: 600,000. That is the number of embryos frozen in vials waiting to thaw and be implanted. Granted, a number of these embryos are not available for adoption but a large portion of them are. Through embryo adoption we are matched with a couple who is looking for a loving home for their embryos. We make a commitment to give these snowflake babies a loving home and to keep in touch with the donor family in a way that is reminiscent of an open adoption. The embryos get transferred to my uterus and (if all goes well) 9 months later I give birth.
What makes this most appealing to us is that while it has all the tenets of open adoption that I love (giving a child in need a home, choosing life for a child, creating a relationship with the donor family) there are many ways that it is very different from adoption. There is no possibility that the expectant mother will change her mind and we will go home to a home ready for our child with empty hands. There is no possibility that someone is going to string us along for months at a time with the lure of a baby out of her need to have someone care for her or send her money. There is no heartbreaking moment where David and I fight the overwhelming joy of knowing that we are going to be parents and try to remember that there is another family whose hearts are breaking while the birth mom sign to TPR and is experiencing the loss of her child. Because in the end, it IS a LOSS for her. The effects of this moment will follow her forever. I had the privilege to sit in a very close friend’s dining room and go through the raw, unedited pictures from her placement and I bawled my eyes out. Not, as she thought, out of my own grief for not having children but out of the grief that I know she still struggles to process.
In the end, Embryo Adoption is a relatively new comer to the adoption world and we are excited to be a part of the growing number of families giving birth to their adopted children.
For more information on Embryo Adoption check out these sites:
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