Path of Perseverance

Hi, I’m Samantha! I am mother to three beautiful daughters, all who came to me through a less conventional method: adoption. Two of my daughters are from a traditional, open adoption, but my last one is whose story I am here to share today as she was added to our family in an even less conventional method – embryo adoption!

My oldest daughter’s adoption was very, VERY costly. It was worth it, don’t mistake my below statements for anything other than me describing the events that led us to our sweet oldest daughter, whom we love and cherish and would not trade for anything in this world! We found out we were infertile on a Wednesday and by Monday were signed up with a very large adoption agency – we never questioned the path we were on, nor did we need time to grieve biological children. (Some people really need time to adjust to the idea of not having biological children, and I support and honor them 100%, it can be a very big emotional trauma to overcome!) Within six weeks, we had our phone call that a baby girl was due and we had been chosen! Just like that – we were parents! The only struggle we had with this situation was the cost. We took out a major loan to cover the expense of this adoption and because our baby came so fast, there wasn’t the luxury or having two incomes to pay it off, as we had decided that I would stay at home with our children. Please know that we have no regrets! I am describing life events, not emotional stances here!

Our second daughter came to us after two years of emotional turmoil – no exaggeration! My husband was in graduate school, so our funds were MUCH LESS than the first time around so I did a lot of our own advertising and used a few parent profile websites, but with that came the emotional stress and drama of six failed adoptions. SIX. FAILED. ADOPTIONS. Can you even imagine? I have never cried so many real, honest to goodness, broken hearted tears in my life as I did over the course of that two year period. We knew that we wanted more children and knew we were willing to do whatever it took to get there, but it was a difficult time!! When our second baby was born though, and we met her, there was no doubt that she was the one we had been waiting for – how we love her so!

Such a long intro to why we chose embryo adoption the third time! We knew that we wanted a large family but I honestly could not imagine going through the experiences of failed adoptions again, much less putting my two girls through that, my oldest was five at this point so I knew I couldn’t tell her one day she was getting another sibling, and the next day she wasn’t. We had also just purchased a house and could not afford a large agency like we did the first time. But again, we knew there was someone missing from the dinner table! I actually have no idea what I searched to stumble across embryo adoption – honest! I just saw it, and was curious enough to click the link. As I read, I got goosebumps, and felt confirmation that this was how we would be adding to our family. It made perfect sense for us!

I signed up with a matching website, and within 24 hours I met our donor! It’s honestly a huge miracle, how the pieces fell into place for us, and how easy things were from the first day. My donor and I have so much in common, she fits right into our family as our other two girls genetic families do. For our family, embryo adoption was the perfect solution to completing our family. I would love to be able to share more with you as I complete my last cycle to attempt to add to our family one last time!

You can find Samantha at www.Blessedwithinfertility.com, where you can catch up on past journal entries and follow her new adventure.