So they aren't ice mutants?!?

While we were on the fence waiting to see if the IVF drugs could be covered or donated, we contacted the woman at the embryo adoption agency, just to get the ball rolling on that process because we both knew that getting these drugs would be a long shot.  She told us that we could just go through the profiles on the website, pick the “batches” that we are interested in, and contact her. 

We did just that.  The whole thing is a whole new level of bizarre.  I don’t know if all agencies work like this, or just the one we we’re working with.  So each “batch” (that’s what we are calling it, translation: embryo’s that come from the same eggs/sperm) has a biography.  The height, weight, eye color, education, occupation, race, and religion of the genetic donors are listed, along with number of available embryo’s.  Also, the donor’s can decide what types of people they want their embryos to go to; married, single, surrogate, straight, gay, and what type of relationship they prefer. One couple even specified they want their embryo’s to go to an Asian/Caucasian couple.  They can also decide if they want the relationship to be open, closed, contact for medical purposes only, etc. 

Initially, there were two “batches” that we were interested in.  One batch did appeal to us more so than the other.  So we emailed the woman and the craziest thing happened… she sent us pictures of the children that were born from these “batches”!  Now I truly have no idea what my husband and I were expecting.  To be honest, I think we were expecting to see photos of ice mutant children. 

 

 

However, these were normal, beautiful, happy children!  I think that the minute that we saw the pictures, our whole attitudes shifted.  We no longer felt like we were on the fence.  We no longer felt like we would regret not doing another round of IVF.  Suddenly, things became clearer.  

At the post IVF appointment, our doctor informed us that they would like to review the embryology reports prior to a match being made.  So we asked that the agency send both files to the doctors office for review.  We also had to fill out a packet of information required by the agency.  The nice thing about the agency that we went with is that they don’t require a home study.  So that was one less thing we had to worry about.  There was a lot of information that was requested, and we spent a lot of time gathering that information.  We had to write letters to the donors, send pictures of us, our home, our dogs.  We also had to fill out a questionnaire about our level of openness… would we be willing to have family picnics on a scale of 1 to 10?  Would we be willing to share photo’s on a scale of 1 to 10? Tons of scenarios like this.  We just went straight down the middle.  I come from a place of, let’s let the relationship develop and see where it takes us.  If I were to meet you, and you are one of those people from ‘My Strange Addiction’ with Cabbage Patch kids all over your house that you refer to as your babies…. NO!  I would prefer to not have a relationship with you.  However if you are a normal well intentioned person, well, let’s just see where it goes. 

Both batches were approved by the doctor.  That was such a huge relief, yet made the decision so much harder.  We had to select the batch that we wanted to move forward on.  Decisions like this don’t happen to normal people.  What if we pick one, and one day the child gets sick?  What if the kid ends up a cat killer? What if we pick one batch and none of the embryo’s thaw?  What if, what if, what if?????????????  In the end, we decided to go with our gut.  Our gut immediately drew us to one batch of embryos over another.  For so long, our lives have been dictated by other people telling us what to do and when to do it.  This was a decision that we had to make.  It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. 

We are currently waiting for the match to be finalized.  We are very happy with our decision.