Mystery Solved!

If you've read my story about our first embryo adoption, you will know that my sweet husband and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary about a month after the birth of our precious baby girl. During the past year, as it has come up, he has told people, "Yes, we've been married for 24 years and we just can't wait to see what our two year old daughter has planned for our silver anniversary!" Well, this past weekend, we found out! She took us to Idlewild, in Ligonier, PA. http://www.idlewild.com/ It's an amusement park that has some wonderful sections that are just perfect for toddlers! We had a great time!Ok, her choice was a little non-traditional, but we loved it!
I can tell you that we never imagined being mommy and daddy to a two year old sweetie on our 25th anniversary, but we wouldn't have it any other way! Waiting is difficult, sometimes dark,and full of battles, but the reward is tremendous.
As the Bible says, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

Accepted

Here's the latest....yesterday, I received an email from Clydene at the NEDC. Both of our donor families have agreed for us to be recepients of their embryos. She is faxing all the information to Bethany headquarters in Michigan. Soon, we'll be hearing from them and will begin to work out our Open Agreement! Hopefully, this will go quite smoothly, since we just went through the process three weeks ago.
If you read my story about the past 12 months, you will know that Bethany's new fee for providing mediation through the open agreement, and for one year after birth really discouraged us. It's $3,000.00, on top of the fees you pay for the homestudy. But, I'm really glad they are doing it the way they are now.
We had a mediator 3 years ago. She was wonderful, and we instantly adored her! We even arranged to meet her when we travelled to Knoxville for our first FET. But, the 'working out' of our Open Agreement, was very general and layed back. She would ask how we wanted to handle a certain situation, like communication, for instance, and we'd say, "We really don't know. How have other people done it?" She would tell us what others had done, and we'd say, "OK, that sounds fine." This time around, we had at least 3, hour long phone meetings- answering questions, being given scenarios to think about, and finding out more details about our donor family. If we hadn't had those meetings, we wouldn't have discovered what we did about our original family. So....I'm gladly paying the fee, and thankful for the experience that Bethany and the NEDC have gleaned over the past few years.

Back Up Donor

Well, it didn't take long for us to hear back from the NEDC about a back up donor. We received an additional profile today. This one has 3 multicells. The donating mother is older, 42, which concerned me a little, but everything else looked good. I sent the profile to my husband and he said he thought we should go for it. I emailed Clydene, the patient coordinator, and told her our decision. She said that she would send our non-identifying profile to each of the donors for their approval. I thought that had already been done, because that's the typical procedure for open adoptions. So... hopefully everything will go through in the next few days and we can begin working out open agreements with these families.

To be honest, I hope that we don't have to use the back up donor. It may seem crazy, but I feel a bond with the donor we 'met on paper' yesterday. I'm already praying that the perfect number of embryos will make it through the thawing and transfer process.

On a side note- blogging is so much fun, but kind of hard for me. I struggle over how much information to share, and even over the titles for my posts! Here's the funny thing...my friend, and former Bethany Christian Services counselor/caseworker, forwarded my blog to someone in the Richmond office. That person has asked me to write an article for their newsletter about why I chose to start a blog. Their theme for August is Ways to Connect in the Adoption World. I'm so NOT expert, but I'm excited!!

Our Match!

I received an email late this afternoon from the patient coordinator at the NEDC. She attached two donor profiles. We now have our new match!!! We will have to have a back-up donor, because (I'm guessing here) there are only 4 embryos. But, we'll learn more about that in the next few days.
If I'm reading the handwriting correctly, it looks like these embryos were created within weeks of when Gracie's donor family was going through IVF. If so, God really was putting my family together when I was giving up. He is so awesome!!! Thanks for all the prayers!

Praying and Waiting

We are waiting for the NEDC to send us our next donor profile. In an open adoption, they try to match you with a family that desires the same degree of openness as you. In addition to that criteria, for us, they are also looking for a family that doesn't have too many embryos, and for one that doesn't have a sperm or oocyte donor. This is our thinking...We want our next child to have the same opportunity as Gracie to learn about his/her genetic origins. Also, we are hoping for another successful transfer on the first try. (If all goes well, this will be my last FET. The NEDC has an age limitation, and I'm about to hit it!) If we choose a donor with 12 embryos, but only use 2; the remaining embryos will eventually be donated to another family- thus creating more siblings for our child. It kind of gets complicated. So, we're praying. We firmly believe that God orchestrated Gracie's entrance into our lives. I believe He will do the same this time.

Introductions...

Why am I doing this? I'm a pretty private person, and I've never blogged before now. I'm a terrible FB user because I rarely post anything! However, we are preparing for our 2nd embryo adoption. In fact, we were supposed to travel to Knoxville in two weeks, but last Monday our plans were disrupted. After much prayer, tears, and counsel- we decided to look for new donors. I was totally at peace with our decision, even though I knew it meant a change in our timeline. But I so wanted to talk to someone who had been through this before. Even though I had been through this before myself- I wanted to talk to someone with a different thought pattern than my own! So, over the past several days I've been encouraged as I've read the blogs of complete strangers going through embryo adoption. I began thinking that someone else 'out there' may be looking for encouragement too, so...here I am- writing my story!