Mini Update

Hi there friends,

Not a lot to update, but I know some of you have been asking and I don't want to keep leaving you in the dark :)

We received our adoption contract on January 15 and were asked to mail it back, signed and notarized within two weeks.  We, of course we're super excited and got it done much faster than that.

The genetic family also had a portion to sign and notarize so we were just waiting on them, figuring it would take about two weeks.

Two weeks come and go and we're thinking, OK, not a problem.

Three weeks come and go, we're thinking....hmmm that's weird.  So I emailed our agency.  She said she'd email them that day.

Four weeks come and go... now we're getting worried.  I emailed our agency again and braved the question that had been at the back of my mind... "do you think they're getting cold feet?"

Two more days pass and I don't hear anything.  Now that question is no longer at the back of my mind, it's full blown at the front. I'm starting to process the idea of entering the matching phase again and saying goodbye to the 8 little embryos I had come to love.

Some people we're mad/frustrated/disappointed on behalf of us.  "how could they change their minds??" people would ask. And I really appreciate the care that was shown.

 But I can genuinely say that I understood how the genetic family might be feeling. (Again we didn't know anything for sure, we were just SPECULATING. All we knew for sure was that they hadn't sent their contract in yet - our minds were just going to the worst).

Placing your embryos for an adoption is a REALLY big deal.  When you have walked through infertility for years and finally get healthy embryos - you're thrilled that you finally have the opportunity to have children.  You get pregnant with two healthy children and feel like you're finally at the end of your journey in infertility. You never dreamed of having an "excess" in those dark days of fear and uncertainty.  So maybe, eventually, the idea of placing those extra embryos for adoption sounds like a good idea when you're done building your family - but then actually signing them away for good, forever - that's weighty stuff.  So although I was starting to get disappointed, I can empathize with that potential fear.

But finally, on February 11 we heard back from our agency.  Apparently there was a miscommunication with the genetic family.  They didn't realize that the contract was in the email they'd received in January and had deleted it, waiting for the contract to be sent to them.  They were apologetic and said they'd take care of it ASAP.

Whew! We were so relieved.

And officially, in the afternoon on Friday, February 20th our agency received the genetic family's contract and our 8 little snowflakes are OFFICIALLY in our name.

We are so excited to have completed this step of the process! Our agency is now coordinating with the clinic where our embies are frozen to have them sent to our clinic in Pasadena.  We're also making our FINAL, albeit hefty, payment to the agency!

Once our clinic has received the embryos we can start the meds.  At this point we're looking at a late March transfer. We ask for your continued prayers that the embryos would ship safely, that my body would respond to the meds, that the embryos would thaw safely, and for a successful transfer!

More updates to come as we get more info!

(photo from a super hero dress up night at church.  I realized I've accumulated quite a bit of snowflake apparel and figured it made sense to be "Snowflake Girl")

Why I Don’t Need or Deserve Children

By Donny Hoover

So I finally got around to making my contribution to this blog.  I wanted to write a little bit about my perspective on this journey.  Gabby has covered all the logistics and such, so you won’t find any of that in this entry, but maybe there are other men out there who are walking through this unique situation. 

Gabby and I first dated in 2007, and after we hadn’t been dating long enough, my sister-in-law asked Gabby some type of question along the lines of, “do you want kids?”  (I’m not sure if we were even ‘officially’ dating at the time, and yet Gabby was essentially being asked if she wanted to carry my children).  Gabby answered that question with courageous honesty, telling about her POF (see previous posts for explanation).  I think that may have been the first time I learned that Gabby would be unable to carry biological children. 

We refer to those few months of dating as ‘the first time’.  I eventually broke things off for an array of reasons, mainly because I did not see myself being the right guy for her at the time.  But one of my other reasons (read: justifications) was because I had really looked forward to one day having a son or daughter that looked like me. 

Fast-forward ahead 2 years (what we call ‘the dark ages’), and God had flipped me head over heels for Gabby Acosta.  I was finally ready to be a man and live out a more biblical version of love, mainly the whole self-less part.  I couldn’t tell you when it happened, but when we got to 2009, the whole non-biological children thing was a complete non-issue to me.  I don’t think I could have given you reasons why back then, but since then, I have come around to understanding just a few of the many, many blessings in God having us seek adoption as our way to grow our family.  Here are two.

1.  God adopted us.  (Romans 8:15, 23; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5) It seems as though adoptive parents have an advantage in understanding what it means that God adopted us.  We don’t have any birthright to be born into God’s family/kingdom.  In fact, every single person is born out of God’s family (in a sinful state).  Yet through love and the sacrifice of His only ‘biological’ Son, He has chosen those who have called upon the name of the Lord to be saved!  He chose believers to join His family and be heirs of grace alongside His Son, Jesus.

2.  Bonus Lessons in Trusting God.  Now, we don’t have anything to compare it to, and I certainly don’t want to diminish anyone else’s journeys in having a biological pregnancy and birth, but I think we’ve been getting extra opportunities to totally trust God.  It’s been pretty amazing to go from, “Ok, Gabby’s never going to be pregnant, I suppose we’ll look into adoption,” to “Ok, traditional adoption is uberly expensive, I don’t think we’ll ever have the money for that,” to “Wait, embryo adoption would work?” to “Wait, we could possibly afford embryo adoption?” to “we hope a couple matches with us and lets us adopt their embryos!” to “God, please let this transfer result in a pregnancy!” to “God, please provide the funds necessary!”

If you are a husband, and you and your wife have an infertility story: 1) Don’t be ashamed.  Way more couples have the same story than you’d think.  2) Look at it as God clearly directing you to some other route for starting a family (that is, if you both want kids.  PS, if you want kids, you want kids.  No saying, “I would want kids, but only biological.”  Imagine if God had said that!)  3) You can figure out a way to make it work financially.  I don’t know anyone who didn’t take out a loan for college and/or grad school, but sometimes finances can scare people away from starting a family?  Hmmm…

Where was I?  Oh yes, a little more about my personal journey with Embryo Adoption.  Well, I was excited about getting things started, but I’m the type of person that never lets my hopes get up if there’s even a chance of things not working out.  So I’ve been trying to be a realist through this whole process (which, in turn, let me to be a bit more of a pessimist interestingly enough).  BUT, one of my breakthroughs came when we first found out about our possible match, and everything was starting to get more real.  Checks were being written (eeesh!), Doctor’s appointments were being scheduled, and things were moving!  So why did I feel a little bit bummed?  These were exciting times, yet in my selfish, sinful nature, I hadn’t really acknowledged this whole time that I wouldn’t be physically contributing to our having children.  Obviously, I was super excited at the possibility of Gabby being pregnant, especially in light of the fact that we had prepared our hearts that she wouldn’t be.  Yet, I guess I needed to ‘mourn the loss’ of my physical contribution of my wife getting pregnant.  I’m sure this looks different with traditional adoption, since neither the adoptive parents are physically responsible for the birth of the child.  But either way, I at least had to acknowledge that to move forward.  Any other Embryo Adoption dads ever walk through that?

Finally, let me address the title of this post.  Yes, yes, it’s just the ol’ method we all see on Facebook and such, the alarming title just to get you to click on the article.  Haha, turns out you had to wait to the very end to see why I don’t need or deserve children.  Here’s the answer:  I don’t need kids because of God.  That is, He is the only being capable of bringing real satisfaction in life.  Psalm 62 says, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.”  God forbid, but if He were to take away my job, my home, my wife, my friends, everything, He has promised that we only find true and full contentment in Him.  If I had nothing, and I died, I would be in heaven with God because of what Jesus did on the cross.  So, do I want children?  Yes!  We’d love them!  But I don’t ‘need’ them.  I need God.  Secondly, I don’t deserve children because they are not a right.  Psalm 127 talks about how children are a reward, a blessing, a heritage from the Lord!  I’m a sinner, and I don’t deserve any of the blessings God has given me: life, salvation, my wife, family, job, home, etc.  So I definitely don’t deserve children.  But do we want them?  Yes!!

The End

Donny Hoover

It's a Match!

I know it's been awhile since we've updated, but we haven't had any news.... until now!

We are very excited (like very excited) to announce that we are officially adopting 8 embryos!

I'll back up a little bit to update you on our timeline...

On December 16 we received an email from Nightlight with the subject "Potential Match-Hoover". Earlier that week, they'd sent our profile to a family in Florida to consider us. The family had liked us and wanted to place their embryos for adoption with us! I was at my desk at work and literally RAN downstairs to Donny's office. We opened and read the email together and downloaded the PDF file of the family's profile.

We learned that in 2001, the genetic parents were struggling to conceive and started IVF.  They ended up with 15 viable embryos, used 7 of them and had twins in 2002. They knew they were done building their family, but kept the 8 remaining embryos frozen.

It was a very emotional and surreal experience to read about this family and look at pictures of the parents and their children.  As I've mentioned before, I've never had any idea what my children might look like, so seeing these people was incredibly emotional.  I was standing at Donny's desk just sobbing as we pored through the photos.

The parents are both a combination of Italian and Irish and have olive skin and dark hair. Interestingly enough though, their twins are fair skinned, blue eyed, red heads! I think it would be so fun to have a red head! But we're just excited regardless!

[Source: Everything Ginger Tumblr (haha yes, this actually exists!)]

It was really important to us that our doctor approve of the quality of any embryos we were considering, so we sent them the information that day. We continued to re-read, and re-read and re-read the family's profile and health history.  We both had a really good feeling about them right away and we spent those next few days praying hard that we would have wisdom in this decision. We wanted to be excited, but we were still trying to guard our hearts in case our doctor wasn't comfortable with the embryos.

Meanwhile we waited, and waited to hear back from our doctor. As the days passed we felt more and more comfortable with the family and decided that if the doctor said yes, we were in.

Christmas came and went, with still no word from our doctor.  That was a little hard for me.  I had this grand ideal that having a match by Christmas would be so magical.  But God was (and still is) teaching me patience and to wait on His perfect timing.

Then New Year's came and went, and it was now 2015 and we still didn't have confirmed word from our doctor...

But finally, on January 7 we received the much anticipated email that my doctor and their embryologist approved the embryos and cleared us to move forward!

*cue many more tears*

Then things sped up considerably...

On Monday, January 12 we officially accepted the match with Nightlight. They drew up the contract and we signed and notarized our portion and mailed everything last Friday the 16th.

Nightlight is now getting all the paperwork and documents finalized to have the embryos shipped from Florida to Pasadena.

Everything would probably be ready to go for an end of February transfer - but that would put me in the "two week wait" while we're in Seattle for my brother's wedding the first weekend in March.  I asked our nurse what she thought about that and she basically said, "there's no evidence that flying causes miscarriages or lowers the rate of pregnancy, however, how will you feel if you flew and then didn't get pregnant?"

Donny and I are totally on the same page that gaining a couple weeks is not worth the potential risk, so we're planning on a mid-March transfer date, assuming my body responds to the meds and does what they expect it to.

We've seen God's guiding hand through every step of this process and we're so excited to see God's plan as we continue to move forward.  Even though I sometimes get impatient, it's pretty incredible that Donny and I only started this whole process in September - a mere 4 1/2 months ago! God has provided the finances, the support, the awesome staff at Nightlight, an awesome social worker, a great doctor's office and so many other little blessings that we so at peace with our whole situation.

We still have a ton of uncertainty about the future, but knowing that the perfect God of the universe has a good plan for it all is just so incredibly overwhelming (in the best way possible!)

We covet your continued prayers!

Pray with us...
1. That the embryos would ship safely to California

2. That my body would respond well to the meds (starting at the end of February)

3. That the embryos we thaw would survive the thawing

4. That however many (1, 2 or 3) embryos we transfer will implant and become healthy pregnancies!

5. Pretty much all the money is now due for the adoption and the transfer and although we've saved and planned...it's still pretty scary writing such big checks! Pray we'd be wise with our finances, smart about spending while things are extra tight and that no unexpected additional expenses would come up.

More updates as they come!

Waiting on a Match

Our matching process has OFFICIALLY started! Our social worker was able to submit our home study report a few days earlier than she anticipated so they said they'll be able to send out our family profile today! There's a chance that we'll have our embryos by Christmas!

When we got off the phone with the office, I said to Donny, "it's crazy this is so real!" He didn't fully hear me and asked, "So real? or Surreal?" And I said, "yes!" It's surreal how real this all is. Which I know is kind of an oxy moron...

I've known that adoption would be in my future ever since I was 17. Since that day at the doctor's office, I never knew what my children would look like. I mean, you never actually know what you're children will look like...but at least you know what pieces you're working with. I've had nothing.  So the idea of seeing pictures of people who have given the DNA to make my children is like, SO MUCH MORE than I've ever had before.  It's possible that in the next few weeks... I'll get to see pictures of my children's siblings.  Crazy, right? Or surreal you might say.  But it is HAPPENING and is SO REAL!

Can you tell I'm excited??

Embryo Adoption Awareness Day

Apparently, today is the first annual Embryo Adoption Awareness Day! I'm pretty new to the EA scene, so I only know because of Sara's blog.  Please pray for Sara - she did her third frozen embryo transfer on the 19th and is in the "two week wait" to find out if she's pregnant. She has a great blog with tons of info and experiences to share. 

It seems that in the last few weeks I've been hearing more and more about EA on the news and in the media.  It could be a case of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly.) But I'm praying that it's because EA is truly becoming a more recognized and common adoption method.

Currently, if you don't happen to live near a specific EA agency like we do with Snowflakes being in Anaheim, just 45 minutes away, it's hard to get traditional adoption agencies to do your home study. It's also hard to get grants or financial help from agencies that usually give funds to families trying to adopt. And as far as I know, you don't qualify for the Adoption Tax Credit (but I could be wrong on that one, tax laws are a moving target).

 I think it's great that we can raise awareness to this new, but very real adoption method.  We know that these frozen embryos (an estimated 600,000 in the United States) are real babies with real souls that don't have a chance at life unless someone adopts them. Even if, at the end of all of this, Donny and I don't end up with any pregnancies, we can still rest in the knowledge that we gave these tiny embryos a chance. We'll be giving them their only chance at life in the best way that we can. Any embryos that have been lost by other couples, or that we may lose as we progress into transfers, will be faces we'll one day see in Heaven and I praise God for giving us this opportunity to be a part of his plan for them. 

Home Visit Complete!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and kind words! Our home visit yesterday went really well! Of course she looked at the house for all of 2 minutes - but I'm still glad we worked so hard to do a "deep" cleaning.

We actually had both our individual interviews and our home visit this weekend.  It was a big weekend!

On Saturday we drove out to Anaheim Hills and met our social worker at the Nightlight Office.  She had us fill out some quiz type of things about discipline and expectations of children. We weren't allowed to talk to each other or share our answers. She then met with us separately and went over our answers. Some of the questions were worded intentionally confusing so it made it a little hard to answer some of them.  I was a little worried about my answers regarding spanking and discipline, but I think that when I was given the opportunity to explain myself, it went well. Apparently, in the state of California, parents are allowed to spank with an open hand over clothing, no objects. But overall, I think we both were able to articulate clearly enough and the interviews went well.

Then on Sunday, she came over to our house for the much anticipated Home Visit. We gave her a quick tour and then we spent the rest of the time answering questions about our upbringing, marriage, what we expect of our children and things along those lines.  The time flew by and before I knew it she was wrapping things up and giving us our timeline for the next steps!

She'll have our home study report completed by December 10! We'll immediately enter the matching process at that time and a potential genetic family will get our profile shortly after that! We're basically just in a waiting game at this point. But with the last two months full of paperwork and lists, it's actually a little nice that things are now out of our hands.

I've been so focused on everything adoption related, I've neglected other things that now need attention.  One of which is my craft booth for a Christmas Boutique on December 5! All the proceeds from my sales will go to funding our adoption.  The main item I'm selling are mason jar snow globes that I've affectionately nicknamed, "Snow Globes for Snowflakes!"

But I'm also making paper garlands, chalk board bible verse signs and wooden candle holders.  I'll include little snowflake tags on everything with a link the blog to encourage people to follow along our journey. (Let me know if you'd like more information about the Boutique or if you're interested in purchasing any of the items!)

Surrendering Control

I was just thinking today about how little control we have through this entire adoption process.  I guess we never actually know what’s going to happen in the future and don't actually have control over our lives.  But in general, I’m someone who likes to plan ahead and at least think I know what’s going to happen. In fact, both Donny and I are planners. We enjoy talking about what our week looks like, and are good about scheduling events fairly far off in the future.

Several years back, when we weren’t even dating yet, Donny was pretty confident that we were going to be a couple soon, or at least hoping that we would be – so he bought us concert tickets for like, 3 months in the future and then asked me if I wanted to go with him. (I said yes, of course!) I once booked our vacation 14 months in advance. We had another vacation planned that we hadn’t even gone on yet, and I had already booked our vacation for the following summer.

Like I said, we like to plan.

Of course, God, like He is so prone to do, is always correcting, guiding and teaching us how to trust Him more.  So for once in my life, I can’t even pretend that I know what the future holds.  I would LOVE to be pregnant by early next year – but I have absolutely no idea if that’s even remotely a reality.  I have no idea how my body is going to react to the hormone treatments so I’m nervous about planning important events—but I don’t even know when I’m going to start hormone treatments! And then, if I do get pregnant, what type of pregnancy will I have? Will I be sick all the time? What if it’s twins? Will it be considered a “high risk” pregnancy? What if none of that happens at all? What if we still haven’t matched with a family by the Spring?

I’ve been hesitant to accept commitments for early next year, but is that being overly optimistic? I’m coordinating a friend’s wedding in the beginning of January but what if I’ve just started hormones and have a raging migraine? (one symptom I’ve read about online). I’m throwing a bridal shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law in mid January – what if I’m an emotional wreck from the hormones? (another symptom I’ve read about online). My brother’s wedding is in Seattle the first weekend in March – what if I just completed a transfer and am in the dreaded “two week wait” and can’t focus on the festivities? I’ve been training hard for LA Marathon the 2^nd weekend in March, but what if my transfer is right before and can’t run after all?

I know there are tangible steps  I can take to help with these questions – one of which involves NOT researching worst-case scenarios on the internet. But it's mostly just being patient and waiting on the Lord.

I can honestly say I’m not fearful about the future, I'm genuinely, just really excited. And I know with certainty that everything will work out for my good and God's glory. I think it's more just not knowing how it's going to all work out. I'm kind of a detail person. But God’s not in the business of always telling us how.  He’s in the business of telling us to trust Him. And so we are.  Or at least, I’m trying really hard.

In the meantime, I did buy a second bridesmaid dress in a larger size, I’ve decided not to register for the marathon just yet, and I have people in place who are more than willing to step in and cover for me if I’m down for whatever reason. 

This is just new territory for me. But hey, hopefully, we'll end up with some kids out of all of this, and according to other self proclaimed "control-freaks" having kids officially ruins all of that anyway. I'm just getting a leg up on the learning :)