Another option out there?

I recently got an email from my client talking about embryo adoption. I had NEVER heard of this before and thought that perhaps some of you have not either and would like to hear about other options. Here is my clients story.

One thing I’ve learned is that there are many different paths to parenthood. Our own personal journey led my husband and I toward embryo adoption.
For us, adoption was always a backup plan. Four years ago- before seven IUI’s, two IVFs and a small fortune in meds- we explored our thoughts and resolved that if we can’t get pregnant, we will adopt.

We felt that our second round of IVF might be our last hope of having our own biological child. We started with two fresh cycles, but both failed. So our last FET with two leftover embryos from the previous cycles truly seemed like our absolute last chance. It resulted in a pregnancy, but then sadly a miscarriage after nine weeks.

According to our original plan, our next step was the adoption agency. We had already selected an agency about a year ago, and had learned as much as we could about the adoption process.
But during this very sad time, my acupuncture doctor suggested embryo adoption. I had heard of that option before, but as with other possible options, I had never really considered it.
While lots of my friends in my support group were discussing donor eggs, I really was not drawn to that. And surrogacy never came to my mind either, maybe because of the enormous expensive. We agreed that we are not going to have a child and be completely broke.

But somehow embryo adoption sounded more and more interesting to us as we looked into it. If you know anything about regular adoption, then you know that it can be very expensive, with lots of legal requirements.

Embryo adoption -as presented to us- seemed like a much easier route. Basically, couples that have had IVF treatments often have left over embryos that are kept preserved in cold storage. If they conceive without using all of their stored embryos, they can choose to donate their leftovers for adoption.

For people in our situation, this process bypasses many of the legal hurdles of full adoption. And often- not always- there is only the cost of the frozen embryo transfer and legal fees. Altogether, it can be up to ten times less expensive than adoption!

Not all IFV clinics have an embryo adoption program, but we were lucky enough to be referred by my acupuncture doctor to one that does. While some embryo adoption programs can be a lot more complicated than others, on the whole it’s less complicated than the full adoption process.

I had accepted that my being pregnant was not as important as having a child of our own no matter how we got there. Still, I find the prospect of being pregnant and carrying our adopted child to be a major plus of embryo adoption. Of course I know that there is no guarantee of success, but as ever, there is always hope.

L.