Snowflakes Embryo Adoptions

One afternoon, I (Gabby) was chatting my with sister-in-law Jessica about our adoption plans and she mentioned the Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program.  A friend of hers had been successful and said it wasn’t as expensive as you might think.  At that point, I’d heard a little bit about embryo adoption, but it felt pretty “sci-fi” to me, so I hadn’t given it much thought.  I actually can’t remember now how long it ruminated in my mind before I started doing serious research, but I think it was around maybe the Fall/Spring of 2014…

Just a side note here – I LOVE doing research.  I’m one of those people who sees a cute dog on the street, finds out what breed it is, and then spend hours reading about it’s history, genetics, pre-dispositions to diseases, whether or not it sheds annually or bi-annually and whether it’s a good family dog or not. (Don’t believe me? When you have time, ask me about Australian Shepherds some day – but make sure you have time, because I’ll have a lot to tell you).

So I started researching Embryo Adoption and everything just started to click.  It’s almost half the price of domestic adoption, is a faster process, and me, as the adoptive mother gets to be pregnant and start bonding with my child 9 months earlier!

Please visit both of these websites for more accurate explanations of everything I’m about to say.  I’m in no way an expert – I just do a lot of reading.

Snowflake Embryo Adoptions (our adoption agency which is under the greater umbrella of Nightlight Christian Adoptions)

Embryo Adoption Awareness Center

So here’s the basics… because of a somewhat growing infertility epidemic, in vitro fertilization is on the rise.  When a family is struggling to get pregnant, they often turn to in vitro fertilization and end up creating anywhere between 3 and 15 embryos.  Hopefully, a family will be able to get pregnant using these embryos – but when they are done building their families – there are often embryos left over.

Families have a few different options for these remaining, unused embryos (which are not recognized as human lives by the government - rather “property”). These families can freeze them indefinitely (upwards of $600 a year), donate them to science (for stem cell research), destroy them, or, place them for adoption. Currently, it is estimated that there are around 600,000 frozen embryos in the United States today. Snowflakes Embryo Adoptions does not advocate for the creation of more embryos and they actually say that they would love to put themselves out of business by getting all of those embryos adopted!

Because our infertility stems from a problem with my ovaries, not my uterus, we’re good candidates for embryo adoption.  When we are matched with a set of embryos, they will be shipped (FedEx actually…yeah, totally crazy) to my fertility clinic, thawed and transferred into me.  The transfer is a simple, out-patient procedure, and I can take a pregnancy test two weeks after the transfer to see if the embryo(s) implanted into my uterus!

Because embryo adoption isn’t currently recognized by the government as an actual “adoption” rather a “transfer of property,” the adoption does not need to be finalized, we’re considered the birth parents, and our names will be listed on the birth certificate. In fact, unless we choose to tell the hospital staff, no one would even know that the child(ren) I’m delivering are my adopted child(ren) not my genetic children!

Like I said… pretty sci-fi.

This 3 minute news clip sums it up well since I probably rambled quite a bit...

http://www.embryoadoption.org/videos/vp_Miracle_Baby.cfm