I am sure many of you read this have a similar story like ours. My husband and I had a rollercoaster journey to get to where we are today.
We met late in life, and married in 2008. We had our first daughter in 2011. It was an easy pregnancy, labor, and delivery and a beautiful baby, Scotia Rose. We decided to wait two years before attempting a second pregnancy. Sadly, that second pregnancy ended in 2015.
We began looking for other options for growing our family.
We first learned about embryo adoption and the Snowflakes Program in June 2017. The more and more I read and researched, I knew this was the adoption choice for us. I had goosebumps all over my body and my heart was jumping out of my chest, beating a million beats per second. Without a doubt. My husband was on board and we both agreed this was our path.
We were matched with an embryo donor family who had two remaining embryos. In January 2019, we had our first FET. We were pregnant! I carried our sweet Angelica Irene for five beautiful months. Sadly, she passed away due to an umbilical cord accident.
We felt defeated; the wind was completely taken out of our sails. We were confused and questioning what we should do next. We had one remaining adopted embryo. We took time to grieve and pray.
We are grateful to God and give Him all of the glory as we walked our journey. So many people helped us along the way: Our embryo donors, the Snowflakes team, our medical team, our family, friends and church. Prayer was an essential element for us. We concluded that we would stay committed to all the embryos we adopted.
Our second FET was successful, too. In July 2020, our hope was restored and our daughter Raylei Hope was born. Our family is now complete. We cannot imagine our lives, our family, without our two daughters. Our girls were conceived in the same year, but Raylei was frozen 9 years before she was born!
If anyone reading our story is considering embryo adoption, we want to cheer you on! You may experience sadness, loss, doubts, fear, joy and hope in your amazing journey. But it is worth it!
Do you have an embryo adoption or donation story? Send your story and photos to us! Post them yourself via Facebook and Twitter or email us your story and we will make it available on our Family Stories page, found on our website.
Email Paige@nightlight.org and help another family build their embryo donation or adoption story.
To learn about embryo donation and adoption, visit EmbryoAdoption.org.
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