I pulled my high school journalism skills out (I was yearbook editor and ran a newsletter for my church youth group- ha!) and ran some questions by D to get a male perspective on embryo adoption. It was insightful and humorous to hear this thoughts.
What were your first thoughts when you heard about embryo
adoption?
I pretty much knew
what it was when we were at an adoption meeting at B.ethany Christian Services
and they mentioned it.
You knew what an embryo was? 95% of the population doesn’t
know what an embryo is…
Yes, I knew what an
embryo was.
Ok, that’s impressive. You must be pretty smart. (secretly doubtful he knew what an embryo was) What were
your first thoughts about you and I doing embryo adoption?
(getting onto the
football team on TV- the team he chose to win in a playoff draft was losing) At
the point we started talking about it, we had been on hold with the adoption
agency forever so I was pretty much okay with trying anything you wanted to
try.
Did you have any reservations?
I worried that we
would spend all the money (that we had saved/set aside), and that it wouldn’t
work.
Tell me about how it feels to know you will not be genetically
related to your child.
For me, it is
probably different than most people. I decided when I was about 16 that I
wouldn’t have genetic children (due to a genetic condition), so I had 15+ years
to come to terms with that. I think ultimately genetics don’t matter.
What was it like to select embryos to match with?
For some people I
could see where it would be tedious. We pretty much just looked at them
individually and all three times (we matched) you and I agreed with who we
should match with, so it was actually pretty easy. Things that were important
to me were family health history, age of the mother, dad’s height, whether or
not they played sports (true story- D asked NEDC if Michael Jordan had any embryos... only half joking!).
What was it like to go through the open donation process?
It was tedious
listening to that lady talk. I don’t really remember thinking that much about
the other family (genetic family), and I figured you would be the one talking
to them most of the time. In choosing between anonymous and open, open seemed
like a more obvious choice. You have better access to health history and where
your kid came from. If one day your kid wants to know where they came from, they
know.
Did openness intimidate you at all? Do you think it is
confusing to the child?
Not in the beginning.
I never felt weird about it at all. It was fine to Facetime and send letters
and pictures. Meeting face to face was a little intimidating. I got a little
nervous when his genetic mom came to visit but once she was here, she was nice.
I don’t think a child will be confused that we aren’t his parents. As long as
you are open from the beginning, the child will see it more as an aunt/uncle
vs. a parent.
What are the benefits of embryo adoption vs. other types of
adoption?
The main reason I
like embryo adoption over other types of adoption is you know what happened
when they were developing. You know if you drank or did drugs. So you know
their full history.
How was the protocol (appointments and medication) from your
perspective?
It was an inconvenience
to make sure you were home for your shots or that you were at a place you could
do them. But it was 10 times worse for you than me. It made me feel bad that
you had to go through all of it and I did nothing. I imagine some guys who do the shots are
stressed about that, but since you did them yourself, it wasn’t stressful to me
at all. You were a lot more irritable than normal on the medication but that
was to be expected so I ignored it. More than anything, it was hard to see you
being sore all the time.
Tell me about transfer day.
The first one was
laid back. It wasn’t a big deal. The second one was more stressful because the
first one didn’t work. The third one was pretty anxious because that was our
last chance (with NEDC). If it hadn’t worked, we would have had to gone looking
for other things.
Tell me about waiting to find out if the transfers worked.
What did you do to get through the wait?
I got really anxious
during that time. It was worse each time, just like I already talked about. I didn’t
do anything special to get through the wait. I just waited.
Tell me your perspective on the miscarriage.
It sucked. It was
sad. I worried about you more than anything. It put us right back to step one.
I didn’t want to give up. It is what it is. It happens.
Tell me your perspective once we found out we were pregnant
with Baby Boy.
Once you have been
through all that (the miscarriage) you don’t think about it too much. You have
to wait. You don’t want to get overly excited because you know it can go wrong.
You don’t want to think about it going wrong because then you get depressed. So
I tried not to think about it too much so I didn’t get depressed.
At what point did you get excited vs. not thinking about it?
I don’t know if I was
ever that excited, prior to him being born. It was still hesitation. It was
more getting anxious and I just wished he would just get here so we can get
things started.
What was it like on the day he was born?
I was very, very
tired. It was very cold, and there were way too many people around. (I am
shooting darts at him with my eyes at this point!) Ok, once I actually saw him,
it actually hit me that I have a kid. That’s when it got exciting. As a dad,
you can see the belly growing and you know there is a baby coming, but you don’t
get that concept til the birth.
Tell me about bonding.
From the time he was
born until we had our first Facetime call with the genetic family, I literally
did not think about him even being not genetically mine. From the time he was
born, he was mine.
So it doesn’t bother you that some of his characteristics
don’t look like us?
I’m glad he doesn’t
look like me. (both laughing) I guess a lot of people want to look at their
child and think “Oh he has my nose!” but isn’t it more important that they are
happy and healthy than that they look like you?
Any other advice or final words for men who may be hesitant
about embryo adoption?
I think many guys may
be hesitant for embryo adoption because genetics may seem more important to
males than females. Like I just said, isn’t it more important to have a child
to love than to be able to say they are genetically your kid? You will love them
as soon as they are here. Now that he is here, I would die for him, even though
he doesn’t have my DNA. I love him like my own kid because he is my own kid.
Any other thoughts on openness?
Everyone should be
open with their child. For your kids’ wellbeing you need to suck it up and tell
them where they came from.
If you can do open
adoption, I would encourage that. It might be weird at times but that is what
is best for them.
