Let me tell ya this one was a tough one. I knew the story was going to be so important to tell, but I also knew that it would be hard for all of the parties involved.

WE HAD THREE EMBRYOS THAT WE COULDN’T USE

Remember back to episode three, when I said we had more embryos than we ever planned to use after we had our twin boys? We were left with three very good quality embryos. In order to keep those embryos in cryo-storage, which basically means frozen until you want to use them, you have to pay an annual storage fee to the fertility clinic.

And for two years, we did that with no hesitation. And then when the boys were two, I had a hysterectomy which meant I could never carry another child, even if I wanted to. Now the decision to keep our embees was weighing on us every year that we went to go and pay that bill. Did it even make sense anymore?

For those that haven’t listened to the first few episodes, the Coles notes is we had three embryos left over after having our children…. 100% genetic material composed of my husband and I. There is a lot of debate in this area regarding embryos….If they are considered children at this stage in the process.

And my view and belief is they are, they just need an oven to grow them in. So when we started thinking about what to do with our embryos, it was a very, very difficult decision. These embryos took an incredible amount of strength, determination, love, and of course money to get them. And the options we had were donate to science, donate to someone anonymously, donate to someone you know, which is basically an open adoption or destroy them.

Donating to science and destroying them was NEVER an option for us. It took many conversations between James and I to decide between anonymous and open donation. James was okay with both, but something kept tugging on me to want to know the people that would be raising our 100% genetic kids. Every time I thought about there being someone in the world that may look like me or James, or our kids, it KILLED me.

When you go through this process, you are required to meet with a fertility counselor to talk through the different emotions you will feel as well as those of the unborn children and how it can affect them as they grow older.

We did make the decision to go the open adoption route. And once that decision was made, we committed. We committed to being as open and honest and supportive with whatever happened on this journey. So once we made that decision, I found a Facebook group that deals with embryo donation and the rest of that story is coming up next. I am interviewing Stephanie, who is one half of the amazing couple that we chose to embark on this journey with.

I encourage you to go take a listen to this podcast episode……I am so incredibly GRATEFUL that Steph decided to share her and Brett’s Hard Beautiful Journey with me. I am praying that someone will hear this episode and know how amazing these two would be as parents. If you have embryos you don’t plan on using, they would be so amazing to consider.

Until next time, be kind and stay well.