Matched on NRFA – Mine & Cody

After 3 failed IVF cycles, Mine & Cody decided to sign up on NRFA.  “We didn’t have to make a ‘family book’ or get a home inspection. It was so nice to do everything online, all on one website. This is a connection of families with other families – it is a beautiful thing.”

What led you to embryo adoption?

My husband and I have been going through fertility issues for about a year and a half. In the early stages of us trying to conceive, my OBGYN was running some general test on me, and my low ovarian reserve came up. At that point, no one knew how bad it was, just that my numbers were very low. We were transferred to a fertility doctor to run some more test on my husband and I. The results came back that my husband and I have the same fertility issue, our doctor described it similar to organ failure, but with our reproductive organs. We were shocked- we are 27 years olds and healthy and truthfully never saw this coming. Within one year, we had gone through 3 cycles of IVF. With the first 2, we used both my husband and I’s genetics. Unfortunately none of our embryos made it to day 5 to even get an embryo transfer. The 3^rd round, we tried my eggs and a donor sperm. At this point, we were seeing if it was my egg quality as well. With the max amount of medicines we had only gotten 3 eggs and 1 made it to day 5 for our first transfer. Unfortunately, pregnancy was not achieved that round. My husband and I have always had a heart for adoption, I remember talking about it earlier in our relationship and he said something in a way I had never though about it. He said, he thought that if you can afford it, then everyone needs to adopt. I remember since being a little girl, I have always loved everything about pregnancy. I truthfully wish I would have gotten my RN and would love to work in labor and delivery. To know that a human body can grow another life was just amazing to me. When our 3^rd cycle did not achieve pregnancy, our doctor and us were talking a little bit about adoption, but she also told us about embryo adoption. I have had four different fertility doctors say that I can carry, and that I have no issues other than my eggs. When our doctor told us about embryo adoption, Cody and I felt so strongly that God really combined the two things we both had a passion and heart for and combined it into one amazing gift.

How long had your family been looking for embryos or seeking an adoption prior to registering on NRFA.org?

My husband and I started looking that same day. Trying to figure out what fit us. At first we were getting frustrated. I’m a big marketing person and my husband always laughs because typically I buy things based on packaging. So some websites we looked at were immediate NO’S for me. I was following an IVF group on baby center and I was reading someone post about adoption, and someone had commented about NRFA.org and that it was newer website. The second I clicked into NRFA.org it was like a breath of fresh air. Everything is so easy and user friendly. It kind of reminded me of a “Facebook” idea of connecting people with other families, and everything is at your finger tips and online.

How long was it before you were contacted by a donor on NRFA.org?

The night we finished filling out all of our questions on NRFA.org we were looking at our recommended matches. We had 3 at the time. As soon as we saw our donors, we knew they were amazing and we wanted to know more. So we messaged them first that night.

What special connections or commonalities have you noticed between your family and your donor’s family?

They truthfully are so amazing. Not only did they give us the most precious gifts. They seem like people we would be friends with. The female donor and I seem like the same person, which is so cool! Both type A personalities. They seem so normal, which truthfully is nice! They have made everything so incredibly easy with this whole process and we could no be more grateful for them.

Describe how the process of matching, legal contract, and medically planning has gone. (Easier than you expected, less/more work than expected, easy/stressful, etc.)

Well, this process was a piece of cake compared to certain things we have done this year. We used the same lawyers as our donors. With embryo adoption, everything seems very black and white, which I find extremely helpful. The whole legal process took us about 3-4 weeks and that was done. The matching, like I said before was so incredibly easy and the fact that you get to really know these people is incredible. The medical planning has been great as well, in our legal contract we had discussed that I use the doctor where the embryos are stored, and the distance is about 3 ½ hours from us, so that was no big deal. We went to meet and have a consultation with the doctor and pretty much started everything that next day. They were able to put me on the next cycle they were doing for transfer times.

When do you plan to do (or when did you do) a transfer?

We plan to do our transfer on our 2 healthy embryos on October 27^th! As of now, I have been getting my checkups and scans here at our fertility doctor closer to home and they are just acting as the lab and sending it to our doctor where the transfer will be performed, they call me the same day with updates on if I need to do anything different with medications.

If your transfer has already been done, do you have the results yet? If positive, when are you due?

Not yet…. But we feel great about this! Fingers crossed and lots of prayers!

What has been the biggest surprise to you throughout this process?

I feel the biggest surprise was how easy all of this was. Everything was right here. We didn’t have to make a “family book” or we didn’t have to get a home inspection. It was so nice to do everything online, all on one website. The fact that this is a connection of families with other families is a beautiful thing.