Shipping Update!

We got our updated shipping schedule! Our embryos should be picked up tomorrow and delivered Wednesday. Praying for their safe travels. 

Because I am a woman it is (sadly) my prerogative to change my mind as often as I deem necessary. That being said we are planning to do our (single) frozen embryo transfer in January! That means  HSG in November then SIS (saline ultrasound) with mock transfer in December. God had been present through all of this and I know He will continue to see us through no matter what happens along the way. 

Come home little snowflakes!

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One Little Line

That single pink line surrounded by nothing but white used to be heartbreaking. Every month I know I'm probably not pregnant and yet every time ovulation comes and goes my mind and body play tricks on me. I spend 2 weeks a month wondering if this could be the month. I predict when I would be due if it were to happen and fantasize about telling my family. Every month I take a test so I can stop getting my hopes up and when that single pink line appears I remember that my body sucks.

I wonder what it's like for fertile people. I can't imagine just wanting a baby then getting pregnant just like that. That's not the path that God put on us and as crazy as it sounds I'm so grateful.

If we had gotten pregnant on our own we wouldn't have Brennan. I couldn't imagine my life for a second without her. If we had gotten pregnant on our own we wouldn't have 4 little embryos in Texas just waiting to make their way here and into my uterus. I don't know exactly what will happen but I do know that one little lonely line has gotten us to this point.

As for our update.   We have a signed and notarized contract!!  Our donors are seriously incredible. When we asked for more information from their fertility clinic our donors got it to us within hours!!  We negotiated the contract in no time and they signed and returned it within days. They have made this process so easy on us.

We have submitted all of the release forms to the Texas (shipping) clinic and have decided to go with Cryoport. They make it so easy!  They take care of coordinating with both the shipping & receiving clinics, manage the packaging, shipping and receiving with email updates all along the way!  We hope it all happens as easily as they make it sound. We will be so relieved when our embryos make it here safe and sound. My husband, daughter and I pray for our embryos every night and know that God will see this through.

We have gone back and forth a lot about the time frame for our Frozen Embryo transfer. Please be praying that we are able to follow God's plan and in His time rather than in our time.

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How Our Embryos Found Us

One of the books I love to read to my daughter is called "When God Found Us You". It's a sweet little story and does a great job explaining the waiting and patience and excitement surrounding adoption. While we longed for Brennan for a long time I truly feel like she found us (with lots of help from the Lord). I feel the same with our embryos. Let me explain:

If you've read the story of Brennan's adoption you can see how evident God's hand was through it all.  While we don't yet have our donor embryo baby we feel like God has been present through every step of this journey. The first time I heard of "embryo adoption" was about 6 years ago. An incredible  woman was giving birth to twins she was carrying from donor embryos. I had never heard of such a thing but how amazing for this couple and for those children! The idea of embryo adoption presented itself again about a year and a half ago. A close family member told me that she and her husband were considering the Snowflake Embryo Adoption program from Nightlight Christian Adoptions for their next child. I had never heard of the program but started to read up on it and loved the idea of it. Just 2 months later a friend of mine blogged about how her journey with infertility led her to consider embryo adoption versus traditional adoption. She ended up choosing embryo adoption through the same agency!  These two women live 11 hours from each other and don't know each other at all. What are the odds? Embryo adoption was really weighing heavily on my heart at that point.

God has provided us with confirmation that we made the right decision. Since the adoption of our daughter my ovarian reserve has gone from mediocre (11 antral follicles) to laughable (4 antral follicles). Most women would be devastated by that news but I am not most women. I was relieved. All throughout our infertility journey I've asked God to just be clear. When we adopted Brennan I felt like He hit us over the head with it and gave us no chance to say no. After that ultrasound I knew that God was reassuring us that we were making the right decision. He removed any shred of doubt and even provided some reassurance that the only part of my uterus that matters in this process (my endometrial lining) looked great!

So onto how our embryos found us. After I started to feel embryo adoption pressing on my heart I joined a few Facebook groups for embryo donors and recipients. We joined Miracles Waiting and the National Registry For Adoption (NRFA) but never really had any luck there. I responded to a woman's post regarding adoption openness in one of the Facebook groups and shared about our experience with a closed adoption. A women, let's call her Snowflake Grandma, sent me a private message asking if we were looking for embryos.  5 months and hundreds of messages later our signed contract is in the mail!! We couldn't be happier with our donors, embryos and contract. Negotiating the intricate details took very little effort and we have all been on the same page since Day 1. God is so good!!

I will share more of the details about our match soon. With the kind of relationship we are building with our donor family I feels it's important for them to get a say in the details we share.  I will say this - we have 4 little snowflake embryos babies in Texas just waiting for us to give them a chance!!

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