Lyndsey and Brad joined NRFA after 9 years of battling infertility and pregnancy loss in hopes of finding their dream embryo donor. After just a month on the NRFA website, they found their match and are looking forward to bringing a new life into this world through surrogacy. Hear more about their embryo adoption experience in their own words below:
What led you to embryo adoption?
We tried genetic embryo IVF four different times without success before we decided on embryo adoption through our fertility clinic. We received four embryos through an anonymous donation. Unfortunately, none of those embryos resulted in a pregnancy. We then felt surrogacy was the best option to complete our family. A friend of mine had used donor embryos with her surrogate with success. I called our new fertility clinic and they put us on the embryo donor waiting list but said it was typically a wait time of a year. I then started researching other ways to adopt embryos rather than just anonymous through a clinic.
How long had your family been looking for embryos or seeking an adoption prior to registering on NRFA.org?
We tried the original donor embryos from our clinic 3 years ago but didn’t have to wait very long to receive them. When we told our clinic we were interested, the process moved very quickly. I had just heard about my friend’s surrogacy pregnancy when I found NRFA.org so that was within the month.
How long was it before you were contacted by a donor on NRFA.org?
Before I had made our profile public, I was on the site searching through donor profiles and found THE ONE! We were planning on waiting until I received some blood work results to test my egg quality before joining the site but when we read about them, we knew we had to make our profile public so we could send them a message. They seemed like the absolute perfect match and we were afraid to wait any longer for fear of losing them. I sent them a message on January 18 and she responded on January 24. We were officially matched in a little over a month.
What special connections or commonalities have you noticed between your family and your donor’s family?
We both feel our relationship with God and raising kids in the way they should go is of upmost importance. They wanted to keep all of their embryos in the same family and we wanted a minimum of the number they were offering. We had both been through some of the same struggles to conceive, even some crazy immune treatments! They wanted a stable financial environment and we will be fortunate to provide that. They wanted a relationship with us and although at the beginning we wanted more semi-open, getting to know them more opened our eyes to a more open relationship.
How was the process of matching, legal contract, and medical planning gone?
The process of matching was very easy. When you meet the right couple, then there is zero stress on the recipient side. We are still in the process with the legal contract but we are using their lawyer so I expect it to be simple. We have already discussed everything we want in the contract and agreed easily about every aspect.
What has been the biggest surprise to you throughout this process?
How easy it was to match. I only had my profile on NRFA.org for a month and now we are already drawing up the contract with a lawyer. We have been trying to conceive for 9 years, so nothing has been fast obviously. I feel like God is finally saying it’s time. And I feel like He led me to NRFA.org to find my children’s first family. Now they will have a forever family with us and will always know where they came from and how much they are loved by both families.
If you’ve been considering embryo adoption to build your family. Sign up and complete your profile to message donors today.