No Big Deal

Just walking through K.roger and an email comes through... my first correspondence from our genetic family, Family D. With pictures!

You know, no big deal. Just standing in the chip aisle, seeing the faces of the couple who gifted us with embryos and the embryos' genetic siblings!!!!

Lots of Hope

We've had two phone calls about the open donor agreement, and our donors have had one (one pre-match consult for us and a match consult for us as well as donors). The open donation agreements are being typed now and we should have them notarized before long. This will finalize our match with these embryos.

It feels great to know we are matched with more embryos! Lots of hope!

It's nervous excitement to begin a relationship with a third sweet donor family! Lots of hope!

It feel more real to know that in another month or so, we will have embryos on board. Lots of hope!

And, I have my SIS today. Prayers that I am cleared to proceed with transfer! "Eeeks", as my mom- and now my nephew- say (hi mom!). 

Check Yes or No

Do you love me? 

Do you want to be my friend? 

And if you do, well then don't be 

afraid to take me by the hand. 

I think this is how love goes. 

Check yes or no!

Nearly a week of silence since our clinic contacted the donors we are interested in matching with. Maybe they don't check their email regularly. Maybe they are busy with their big family. Maybe they are second guessing their decision to donate. Maybe they don't like something about us.

Eek! An email from the clinic... asking when we will choose a donor? Uh, we already did, and we heard you were emailing them! A response back from the clinic. Yep, they were mistaken. The donors were indeed emailed. Since it's getting close to protocol time, they will call them to check in.

Check email religiously all day. An email about a CEU for professional training. Boring! A junk email from Huggies. Don't know how they got my email. They don't how I have no reason to buy diapers right now. An email from my monitoring clinic with a breakdown of all the billing for the year. Wohoo! Another email about a CEU. I really need to get off some of these lists.

Once 4 PM hits, I know I won't hear anything today. It's 5 PM at the clinic.

The pressure mounts knowing a phone call was made. It may be easy to miss an email, but it's pretty difficult to miss a call. During the two times we were chosen, we heard back within two days. The time we weren't chosen, it took about a week to hear. In my mind, longer waits mean bad answers. So many things race through my head. I don't want any donor to feel pressured, but I sure would like to know if these are our embryos!

Maybe they emailed or called back once the clinic was closed (the donors are on Pacific time, the clinic is on Eastern time). Maybe they are on a fall vacation (does the West coast take fall breaks?!?)? Maybe their kids are involved in a lot of activities, or maybe one of them has been sick. Maybe it's just really difficult to finalize your decision with saying "yes, this family can transfer our embryos".

Lots of Small Updates

We're making slow but steady progress towards our third transfer. We officially told our clinic that we are interested in matching with Family D. D and I sat down in front of some profiles, read through them together, and both concluded that this family seems open, fairly similar to us and a plus is that they have a very good health history. Unlike Family A and Family C, they live completely across the country- on the West Coast.

Going into this the third time, I have lower expectations. Family A was everything we could have asked for, and although I think we will always have a relationship and keep in touch, we will never have a child in common. I think that hurt made choosing this time have less pressure. We just want to find someone we both agreed with. Obviously picking the "perfect" family for us didn't work out. That disappointment clouds our desire to look high and low for another "perfect" family.

So, now we wait for an answer from Family D. We received very quick responses from Family A and C (we had a wait awhile  to hear "no" from Family B). Family D has five kids, so they're probably pretty busy. I hope we don't have to wait too terribly long, though. The clinic said they emailed the family. I hope whichever parent they emailed actually checks their email! If someone emailed D about something important, they might wait awhile for a response! :)

After we both agreed to pursue a match with Family D, I talked with Carol, the embryologist about these embryos. Quality doesn't guarantee success, but we are interested in it. Much to my surprise, she said they are from an excellent clinic she's had good success from before. On top of that, all six embryos are very excellent quality. As in all the very best and second best a blast can be (multicells are rated less stringently, but blasts are rated 1-6 and then with two sets of letters A-C... so there are lots of ratings a blast can be- 6AA, 5AB, 4CC, etc). That makes us feel hopeful.

We've already had our phone conference with the new contract mediator (the CEO who is covering). We prefer the same openness as with our two previous contracts but understand if this family isn't comfortable with that. She will discuss everything with Family D, should they agree to match with us. So, that's one more formality that's checked off the to-do list.

My weekly post-d&c pee stick this weekend was such a faint positive, that I'm sure by tomorrow it would be completely negative. I hope this means no more retained tissue and proper healing. I am so happy to have paid $2.40 rather than $484.00 to monitor this (not to mention the gas, time, hassle, and emotional distress to get to and from clinic).

After having to reschedule twice, I finally have my consultation with Dr. K this week on Wednesday. The genetic testing results came back with no answers. They didn't find anything genetically wrong with the baby. I have a whole list of questions typed up that I want to discuss with him. Please pray for him to have wisdom in my treatment. I'm sure he hates practicing medicine in the age of google and everyone talking to each other online- but I want to address my concerns and advocate for myself (and my future embryos).

Proud Parents, Again

Our conference call went well, and we are matched with two little embryos with Family C. This leaves us at a total of 5 embryos in the freezer (3 remaining from Family A, and 4 embryos in heaven, not be left out of the count). 

I started l.upron tonight, so this update came just in time. Oh, how this all has tested my faith! I am a planner and do-er. To plan on a cycle without knowing until tonight that we are, indeed, matched, is against every grain in my body. 

I still feel like I'm on the Bachelorette. It's the weirdest feeling to have two simultaneous relationships with the possibility of either, neither, or maybe even both families' embryos becoming our children. Maybe we'll have twins with Family A, or maybe just one kid. Or maybe no kids with Family A. Or maybe twins or a kid with Family C, or maybe just one kid. Or maybe no kids with Family C. Or maybe twins, one each from Family A and Family C. Maybe there is even a Family D out there we don't know about (Oh, I sure hope not!)?

In this mental chaos, I am humbled to know not one but two families have gladly donated their embryos for us to adopt. They have allowed us to have the opportunity to be parents with their tiny embryos that they went through IVF hell to have. They have graciously given us a gift I can't comprehend at times. They look at their children every day, genetic siblings to these embryos, and choose to bless us with the chance to experience what they have.

A lot of days I wish I wasn't in this place- I just want to have child the old-fashioned way without the medical and financial and ethical complications. But if I have to be in this place- and here I am- I am beyond blessed. To be matched. To be matched with two families. To be matched with two families who are selfless, thoughtful, supportive, warm, and open.

Maybe this is why nothing has worked out so far. Maybe we are supposed to be parents to one or more of these embryos (and maybe not; I have to prepare myself for either outcome). At least I know I meant to release some souls to heaven, so they aren't stuck in a freezer, because that has been accomplished, if nothing else.

Friday the 13th

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and a full moon. As the media put it, "superstitions collide". I'm not superstitious about many things at all. On that note, yesterday went pretty well for us!

We heard back from the lady who does the contracts. True to form, she sent us great details about Family C. They seem so warm and friendly. Through her, they forwarded more pictures of their too-cute kids.

I feel so blessed to be able to match with both Family A and Family C. I wish we didn't have to match twice, but out of all the families, I think we found the perfect match for us twice.

Family C will have their contract conference call Monday night, and we will have ours Tuesday night. At that time, we'll receive more details on the family such as the journey of the embryos. We will also ask to be able to directly communicate with Family C from this point forward, as we've been doing with Family A.

Whiplash

I have whiplash.

Not, not from getting sidewiped by a hit-and-run driver yesterday (although that did happen... thankfully I'm okay, the car is okay, and I didn't have any embryos along for the ride).

I have whiplash from just another day in embryo adoption.

This morning we heard back from our clinic that the family we'd asked to match with (Family B, for clarity) did accept us but would not consent to "mixing" (if we were to have only one of our original embryos make it, we'd need to "mix" by adding an embryo from the second family). I can respect that viewpoint. It obviously isn't one we share, though, so we weren't able to be matched.

Failed match. 

I then called the clinic to discuss removing our two previous parameters (mother's age and one physical characteristic) and asked her to send all the remaining multicell profiles that would allow for mixing. This amounted to seven more profiles (for a total of 24 profiles we've viewed during this process).

As our custom, D and I were quickly able to narrow down which families we may be comfortable with and picked our favorite. I emailed the clinic back to let her know who we'd like to match with and expected to have a several day wait to find out.

Approximately 2-3 hours later, the clinic was pleased to let us know that they contacted Family C, and Family C was game for a match.

Match made.

Family C seems very open (they included a large amount of pictures, much like Family A). Also like Family A, they are an unknown but close distance from us, so hopefully they will be okay with that. Family C has two multicell embryos, which, added with our current trio, will bring us to five embryos.


Next steps will be securing contracts, which involves more phone calls to negotiate contract terms and notarizing our "property transfer" so the embryos can officially be "reserved" for us. We will know more in the next few days. Which is comforting to me since the real medication sprint starts next Tuesday!

We're Official

Our open donor agreement as well as the donors' agreement have been received by our clinic, and we're officially the proud parents of seven little embryos.

Frozen embryos are often referred to as snowflakes. They're frozen to -196 degrees C and, like a snowflake, each unique and beautiful.

Seven snowflakes waiting in a container, waiting at a chance for life. Seven snowflakes that may become our child or children.

Whirlwind

It's been a whirlwind. We got an email with 11-12 donor family profiles on Tuesday afternoon. More specifically, I got them on my email on my phone and started browsing. We had a training for our adoption agency that night, so when I met up with Daniel after work, he looked over the profiles, too. Within 45 minutes, we had both agreed on the same first and second choice. I guess with all the talking about sperm donors and potential adoptive situations, we've wound up very much on the same page.

We didn't feel like we needed to sleep on it, because we have pretty certain specifications of what we are and aren't open to, and both of these families aligned with them. I emailed our clinic to let them know our choices Tuesday night. (The choosing a family was the easy part... the difficult part was understanding the logistics behind the different stages of embryos- this set has embryos in two stages- and the implications for transfer and needing a back up).

From there, the clinic has to contact the the donors and send some information on us, to see if they want to match with us. They are able to ask questions of us before they say yes or no. We expected to hear back in several days, or maybe a week or longer.

Bright and early Thursday morning (so really just a day later), I had an email saying our first choice donors accepted us: "I wanted to let you know that donor xxxx has gladly accepted you as recipients". Big horray #1!

The open agreement/contract mediator followed up with us later that afternoon to let us know the donor family actually lives within an hour of us and wanted to know if that was ok. Fine by us! Again, we wondered if this would be a roadblock. But, we heard back within several hours that they, too, are okay with the proximity: "I am happy to tell you that I received a prompt response from the donors.  They state that they 'don't have any problem with the geographic proximity' and are 'good to proceed'." . Big horray #2!

Now the next step will be that our mediator meets with them to see exactly what openness they forsee, and then meets with us to do the same. She will write a legally binding contract. We will all agree to it (hopefully). Then, the set of embryos from this family will be "reserved" for us, and we can proceed with transfer in the May cycle!

I'll Take That As a "Probably Not"

The expectant mom in Situation #3 who is looking at our profile book is still looking at books, and may want to look at books out of state. I'll take that as a "probably not". I still wish her much peace in making a decision. There are over 100 waiting families in our state alone, so that must be a painstaking decision.

We're still exploring and working towards a concurrent route for adoption in addition to waiting with our agency. More about that to come shortly!

Still No Decision

Today marks the second deadline for Situation #3. Originally, we were supposed to hear by this past Tuesday, and then we were supposed to hear by today. Apparently our agency's expectant mom counselor has been busy with a baby born this week (yay for one of our fellow families!) so she has not been able to meet with the expectant mom looking at our books to discuss her decision. So, books are in hand, but we are still waiting. The agency says not to expect an answer one way or the other until after Christmas.

No Decision Yet

I talked to the agency and found out the expectant mom didn't end up getting the profile books until yesterday (instead of last week). I don't know if that's because all of Nashville basically shut down last Tuesday due to ice or because she is hesitant. There's supposed to be a decision by the end of the week.

Nothing goes as planned. Time drags on. But when we have our son or daughter, it will be worth it. I'm still praying for this woman and her family to have peace and clarity. I pray when the situation is right, it will be evident to us and our future child's birthparent.

Situation #3

Our agency let us know today that next Tuesday, our profile book will be shown to an expectant mom due in April. Six other families' profiles will shown, as well. I am hopeful but know realistically that we have about a 14.2% chance of being selected (not that I'm counting...), and that is if she even goes through with her adoption plan.

The funny thing with this is that you never know what will cause an expectant mother to choose a particular family, so you have to just be yourself and trust that in the right timing the right child will come to you. I am not praying that we will be chosen but that God will direct the expectant mom in the best path that honors Him. It's hard not to pray "Please, us", but I realize that my feeble mind knows very little. 

Let's just hope we don't go crazy waiting. I don't know about anyone else who's waiting, but it's so hard not to look for "signs", too. I could name signs with every situation we've looked at (and I have looked at a lot online, trust me). For example, the expectant mom gets the profile books on the 10th of the month, which is our anniversary date (different month). The birth is set for April, which is my sister's birthday, and a nice warm month for fun birthday parties. This situation would be through our agency, so it should be within our budget. Maybe that all sounds silly to most of you, but I read similar things in an adoption memoir The Russian Word for Snow, so maybe it's more than just me. :)

Situation #2

We applied for another situation with the same attorney in Florida as Situation #1. This was for a baby who was already born. The mom ended up not showing up for the meeting with the attorney to select a family. The baby went into foster care the next day since it could not stay with either parent. It's a sad situation, but it is what it is.

Situation #1

We found out about a last-minute situation of a one year old in Florida and overnighted our application in this weekend. We weren't selected and there is a question if our homestudy would be valid for this situation.

We are getting a home study addendum to open up our criteria of situations we are "officially" open to, though. Maybe this is bad of me for not already knowing this, but when we told our agency what situations we are open to, that actually becomes a part of the homestudy so we are not "home study approved" for any situation outside those parameters. I guess I never paid that close of attention to our homestudy (oops!) and thought it was just something agency-specific to help them guide matching. It's actually pretty binding, and the world of adoption doesn't slow down to wait for the paperwork to catch up.

So, at least after nearly five months, we have finally been considered for a situation. It didn't work out, but I can be happy because I only want to walk through open doors. I know this may not be the best theology, but all the major paths in my life have resulted in disappointing closed doors only to have an open door come with something much better.