I was in to see my infertiity doctor and he mentioned to me about embryo adoptions. Has anyone heard of this. He said some couple have embryos left over from an IVF cycle and they don't know what to do with them. I read a little about this on the web site run by Snowflakes but wanted to know if anybody else has gone thru this.
I am blogger friends with a woman who did this. Here is her blog.
http://desertsnowflakes.blogspot.com/
I know she is more than happy to talk about her experience and to help others, if they wish.
I did IVF. Lots of couples have more frozen embryos than they use and will donate them for adoption. You don't have to go through Snowflakes. Just ask your doctor if there are any embryos up for adoption in your clinic and they will give you the medical history of the father and mother.
This is also less expensive than doing IVF, less invasive, and I think has a higher success rate because the embyos you adopt have started dividing enough that they were saved, and because with regular IVF, you don't know how many eggs you will produce and then how many will fertilize, and then how many will begin dividing rapidly.
I've never heard the term "adoption" associated with this, but the notion of implanting another couple's embryo has been around for awhile. I'm skeptical of the term adoption. Just be sure the baby you give birth to is only yours, and not open to the biological parents - ever.
I don't have experience with this, but want to congratulate you for considering it. This sounds like a wonderful option for you and those wonderful babies-to-be!
My SIL's brother and SIL did this, I had never heard of it until my SIL told us they were doing it. This couple had one son via IVF and after several IVF attempts for baby number two they discovered her eggs were just not viable for whatever reason. They considered out of country adoption and surrogacy, but since the laws are not very clear on surrogacy (they live in Indiana) and out of country adoption has gotten difficult and is expensive, decided to adopt an embryo instead. I do know she had to have shots to prep her body to accept the pregnancy same as IVF and then she had to have shots throughout the pregnancy but it was worth it to them. They now have a healthy happy 1 year old little girl.
One thing that one of my friends considering donating her embryos brought up for you to consider is that if you do this your child will have full brothers and sisters that you do not know so they will have to keep that in mind when meeting people later in life. Overall it sounds like a neat idea to me but hadn't considered that until my friend mentioned it.
Some friends of mine have gone the embryo adoption route. They miscarried their first baby but now are expecting healthy twins any day! They went through an agency called Nightlight I think because they liked the way that it was handled, respectful of the babies as people. Legally it's not an adoption, because legally embryos are not considered people, so the contract that you will sign to make the embryos yours will be more like a transfer of property. But of course the babies you'll have will be your babies no matter who's DNA they have!
I have been through this. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
I have a close friend who adopted embryos. On her first transfer attempt, she became pregnant and eventually delivered twins - a boy and a girl. I know she is thrilled that God gave her these children and gave those embryos a chance for life!
We did IVF so I am familiar with that, but we did not used adopted embryos. I don't think it matters though. What an awesome way to givve life. Those precious embryos are cryopreserved and waiting. :)
A friend of mine did adopt her embryos and then do IVF. The first time she had twin boys and then they did it again using the same family for embryos and had another boy. So all the boys are related both as embryos and their adopted parents.
Praying for you!
I, personally did not go through it, but a very good friend of mine did. She went through all the procedures before adopting an embryo and never had any viable eggs on her own. She now has beautiful 7 week old baby boys-twins. She couldn't be happier, even with very little sleep! :-) I believe its a wonderful thing. She gave life to children that may have never had the chance. Even though genetically they aren't hers, she was able to get the physical and past genetic information on the parents and find the ones that would not only look most like her and her husband, but having the genetic history is very important as well.
I don't have any experience to share but it does sound like a great option. Life is life and babies are babies and at the end of the day if you want to be a mommy and embryo adoption is how you get there I think it is a wonderful thing.
