13 Things That Would Be Nice For Friends and Family To Know AboutEmbryo Adoption/Donation

I thought it would be nice to make an informational list for supportive friends and family of someone going through embryo adoption/donation.

Before my husband and I became the adoptive parents to 8 precious embryos, I was a friend of someone going through embryo adoption/donation - she called it embryo adoption.   So I think it is important for friends and family to learn about embryo adoption themselves. You never know how it can change your life.

1.       First thing to know is what embryo adoption/donation is.  When  a couple or an individual has gone through  IVF ( In Vitro Fertilization), and they feel that their family is complete,  and they have embryos left over that are still frozen,  they can donate them to another couple or an individual. This process is called embryo adoption or embryo donation.

How can someone donate embryos or receive donated embryos?

a.       Someone can find a private match online through places like Miracle Waiting and NRFA.Org.  On sites like these, couples that are looking to donate their embryos can look at profiles of those who are looking for embryos. With private matches, people can talk back and forth and then can decide if it is a good fit or not. Some people even find match on Facebook groups. With a private match, it is most often called embryo donation.

b.      Some Fertility Clinics have a donor embryo program. Most often it is anonymous donation. The person receiving the embryos do not know much about the donors. They usually get health history, family background, education level and donor interests. With Clinics, it is most often called embryo donation.

c.       Then there is Agencies. We adopted our embryos from an agency. With an agency, most often you make a profile book. Then you match up with a donor couple that have similar likes, religion, and sometime even similar ethnicity. With agencies, it is called embryo adoption  rather than donation

There are 3 types of adoption.

d.Open - where the donor family and adoptive family talk to each other, may be Facebook friends, and sometimes they meet in person.

e.Semi-open - the adoptive family sends letters, pictures, and updates to the agency who then forward the info on to the donor family.

i.   Closed - not much info is shared and there is no communication between donor and recipient.

2.       Terminology on this is really hard and people can be very passionate on one term or another.  Some people that receive embryos call it embryo donation. This part really confused me at first because I thought embryo donation was the term you used if you are donating embryos. Others call it embryo adoption. I call it embryo adoption because that is the term I was first taught.

3.       Embryo are seen as being property so you cannot legally adopt embryos. Instead, the two parties write up a contract to change ownership of the property. Most often the donor and the recipient will work with an attorney to write up the contract. Once both parties agree, they both sign and then embryo ownership changes. If going thru the fertility clinic directly,  the clinic themselves have a contract for both parties to sign before transfer.

4.       Why would someone choose embryo adoption/donation?

 There are many reasons for this:

5. Genetic Disorders: My friend and her husband chose this path because they had a biological child that was born with a genetic disorder and has many health issues.

6. Infertility: Many couples choose embryo adoption/donation because they have infertility issues and are not able to get pregnant naturally. For my husband and I, this is why we chose embryo adoption and donation. We were told that my egg quality was too poor and we only had a 5% chance of getting pregnant with IVF using my eggs. 

          a. Miscarriages: This one can also go with infertility and Genetic Disorders. Some people have become pregnant naturally and then miscarried, most often before 12 weeks, because the baby or babies were not healthy. Most often it is a genetic disorder that does not allow the baby to go to term.

We have crossed over to this category because against all odds and being told my egg quality was too poor after 7 years of trying I got pregnant naturally with triplets, only to miscarry at 8 weeks because their hearts stopped beating.

iii.       Secondary Infertility- Some couples have been able to get pregnant and have a biological child or children, but then become infertile  and their family is not complete 

iv.       Single mother- this has been option for single people to have children, too.

7.         Why would someone choose embryo adoption/donation and not simply adopt a child or baby already born.  This can be a real tough question to answer - and believe me, I asked myself the same question when a friend first told me about it over coffee. I thought, why don’t just do traditional adoption? But, luckily, I kept that thought to myself. Another friend of ours was talking about it a few months later when she told me our friend wanted to adopt.  I told her I knew she did and how she wanted to adopt. We both thought it was real weird.  You should not tell your friend how weird you think it is. They don’t need to hear that. One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot understand another person's choices unless you walk in their path.

Here are some reasons my husband and I first chose embryo adoption/donation

iii.       Cost- A traditional adoption with an agency can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 or more.

8.        Want to go through a pregnancy: For us, this was the big factor because we want to go through the pregnancy. The genetics of the child did not matter to us.  And now, after being pregnant once, it is hard to let go of the feeling of wanting to be able to carry your child.

9.         Scammers: We are now on the domestic adoption route. We have a lawyer and are trying to find an expectant mother. We have a Facebook page and a blog page saying we are looking to adopt and we have had three people try to scam us so far.

10.     The wait- It can be a hard and long wait to adopt domestically. Our Lawyer has sent our profile to three birth/ expectant mothers and we have not been chosen and now our home study is about to expire and we have to spend more money to update our home study.

11.     There is always the route to adopt a child or newborn from the foster care system but that can be a hard route to go down. For us, this is not an option at all because we live in Washington State and I have a home daycare license. In Washington State, if you have a home daycare license you cannot be issued a license for foster care. Also, with foster care you have the risk of the child being returned back home to their family and they cannot be adopted.  And sometimes a foster child has a lot to handle that is just too hard for a couple.

12.     There is also the international adoption route. I personally do not know much about it, but we personally did not choose that route because we would like a baby out of the hospital.

So traditional adoption is not always an option for some people.

13.   Judgment: I will lay this out flat.  Someone doing embryo adoption/donation does not need to be judged. This not an easy road. Yes, there are the same risks as IVF.  As a matter a fact, in a way, the same steps are taken as IVF, meaning that an embryo transfer is involved. There is always the risk of the embryo not making the thaw or the embryo not implanting. I’m well aware of those risks. We have done three transfers ourselves and with all three we never got a take home baby. Our first two transfers failed and our third transfer our last embryo never made the thaw so the transfer never happened. But this is also is an option that we needed to explore.

I grew up with a learning disability and was told by teachers in high school that I would never go to college.  I was told in college by professors that I would never graduate from college and I was just wasting my time.  I will tell you that this struggle with infertility and trying to have a child is the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life. It makes my struggles though school a piece of cake. 

                So like I said, your friends or family members do not need to be judged. They need prayers, they need a hug or a smile or even a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream . They need to know that you are there to support them and not judge them.

Here is some other things that people on this journey thought that family and friends should know: 

 The biggest difference between traditional adoption and embryo donation?   With embryo donation you are given the possibility of the birth of a child.  Not guaranteed.  Additionally,  the carrying mom is the biological mother. New research is showing that baby and carrying mom share dna in the first trimester. Their is also a process called epigenetics.  this is where the carrying mom's dna highlights what the babys's characteristics will be!   That means the baby is uniquely theirs! Although the Dna begins from the donors, the embryo itself is still uniquely the child of the recipient. This process truly takes 3 people to make a baby.  A miracle! 

Will you be judged?  We have chosen not to share our journey will the public, however those closest to us thru our 11yr infertility battle know.  After explaining what it actually is,  we found them to be very supportive.  My daughter is soon to be born.  I've already read her books in utero about embryo donation.  I never want there to be a time she doesn't know. We are so grateful for our selfless donors who began her first 53-58 cells of life. We believe every person should know where they come from.  Its a part of her birth story that we feel is truly the biggest miracle.  ♡  -C.Muntz