Life Abundant Blog

living life abundantly in spite of PCOS

Embryo Adoption: Our FET Schedule

By: Jessicomment

I finally have our schedule for our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer)! I feel like this was taking forever to happen considering we first started this process in June and had our first consultation in September, but here we are. I want to document as much of this process as possible, knowing this FET schedule is loose and will adjust as ultrasound results and blood work comes back. For now, here is the schedule from the clinic!

  • Birth Control Pills: December 27 – January 4
  • Baseline Ultrasound: January 7 or 8
  • Labs: Week of January 13
  • Uterine Lining Check & Labs: Week of January 20 (this can change everything about the actual the transfer date)
  • Transfer: Week of January 27

As far as a pregnancy test, I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided if I will test at home at all, or just wait for the official blood test. It’s going to take a lot of will power to wait but part of me wants to cherish being “PUPO” (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise) as long as possible.

I also don’t want to go through the stress of comparing lines and whether they are getting darker like I did with my last miscarriage. We’ll see. My husband’s 36th birthday is February 8 so I feel like it would be such an amazing way to celebrate, but at the same time, I don’t know if we want to risk bad timing and potentially ruining a special day. It depends on how I feel. We’ve had negative pregnancy tests for both of our birthdays in the past due to failed infertility treatments. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to test before then, but we’ll see how the dates line up.

So that’s the tentative FET schedule! As it moves along, I’ll share details on Instagram primarily, but some Facebook, too. Follow over there for more frequent updates!

signature

Embryo Adoption: Legal Documents SIGNED

By: Jessicomment

As of November 27, 2019, we are the parents of TWO FROZEN EMBRYOS! This is one of the most crucial steps in the embryo adoption process!

I shared about it on Facebook and Instagram, but for my own records, I had to make sure it appeared on the blog, too. 🙂 The legal documents are officially signed and notarized. Now to get the transfer date set! I absolutely cannot wait! I’ll share as soon as I have more info on the actual transfer, but in the meantime, we’re celebrating the addition of TWO snowflake babies to our family name. They are already loved so much!

^ Our amazing legal team!

2020 is looking bright!

signature

In Memory of Mom

By: Jessicomment

My mother was found in eternal sleep on November 11, 2019 at just 61 years old. She would have turned 62 in February 2020. I set up a memorial website in lieu of sending something to a local newspaper: In Memory of Rhonda Alexandria Seigfreid. If you have someone pass away, I highly recommend using EverLoved.com. It’s free and it gives family and friends the opportunity to write comments, post photos, send flowers, or donate to a chosen charity. It was nice to see people who loved her interact on the website.

[Read more…]
signature

Our Third Miscarriage

By: Jessicomment

On November 4, we started our third miscarriage. It was our second one in 4 months. We unexpectedly got pregnant again and very quickly lost it again.

Just like in June, most people had no idea what was going on. I went to Girl Scouts with Zoey. I had meetings for work. I carried on feeling completely numb but went ahead and functioned anyway. I felt like I didn’t have a choice but to keep going or I’d lose my mind. This felt like some sort of cruel joke.

All of this started on November 2, the day before we were supposed to have our chili lunch fundraiser. Yes, this happened the day after our third-party counseling for embryo adoption. Insert eye roll. On that Saturday morning, when I realized my period was a couple of days late, I took a test and it was blatantly positive. It wasn’t a squinter or one of those “do I see a line or not?” type of situations…

Positive test on Saturday, November 2, 2019.

So we canceled the chili lunch that was scheduled for the next day because we were pregnant, why would we host an embryo adoption fundraiser if we’re PREGNANT, right? Ethically, that would be wrong. So we canceled it without telling many people why and determined that if this would be a successful pregnancy, we would hopefully still get to keep the embryos we’re adopting for the future, but we’d donate all of the money we had raised to another family in waiting. We wouldn’t just hold our fundraised money for years, that would be weird and we didn’t want anyone to accuse us of using it for other purposes so instead we’d just donate it… pay it forward… bless someone else.

That Sunday, the second pregnancy test was so light, it was clear that my levels were dropping. It wasn’t just a slight difference, it was drastic.

[Read more…]
signature

Embryo Adoption: Required Third-Party Counseling

By: Jessicomment

Part of the embryo adoption process (which I shared in our checklist post!) includes required third-party counseling. Without releasing too many personal details, I wanted to share what this looked like for us in case it helps others going through embryo adoption. The counselor we chose was recommended by another local embryo adoption family, so we were able to do this close to home instead of at the clinic, thus saving another 6-hour round trip! All three sessions were completed back-to-back on the same day, which also made life easier. Glenn and I took half vacation days from work to make this happen, and we scheduled it at a time that the embryos’ biological mom was off work so it wouldn’t affect her normal schedule.

SESSION 1: Our Session: We met with the counselor for 90 minutes. The purpose of the session was not to identify our ability to parent children who are not biologically ours. She was not trying to identify how well we parent our current child either. She helped us walk through potential issues we could come up against, she encouraged us with best practices for handling such issues, and talked through different resources that would be beneficial for us. A lot of the conversation was “how would you handle this if it came up?” And we talked through whatever that thing was. I felt like we walked out of there better prepared for what lies ahead. I would say we were very encouraged!

[Read more…]
signature

Embryo Adoption: Our Step-by-Step Checklist

By: Jessicomment

I wanted to share our step-by-step checklist for our embryo adoption because I think there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that people don’t even realize. Plus, this might help others going through this same process. That said, it will be different for you if you don’t know the biological family like we do. If you’re going through a clinic’s donor program or an agency, you’ll have some different steps, such as a homestudy, which was not required for us. Agency embryo adoptions do require a homestudy. Since our situation is private and not through an agency, a homestudy is not required. But if this was a private adoption of a living infant, it would be required. The laws are inconsistent and it really comes down to when the government believes life begins and what they consider to be an actual adoption.

So all that to say, this is our checklist of steps required to complete our embryo adoption. As the recipient, I pay for everything. The biological family does not pay for any of the items required of them. The family is already giving us the greatest gift, so this is a no brainer and NO problem! All of the below for both phases is costing approximately $9,800.

Phase 1

Before the clinic will even start you on medications for a transfer, these are required:

[Read more…]
signature

Embryo Adoption: The Saline Ultrasound

By: Jessicomment

Part of the process of pursuing this embryo adoption is making sure I can safely carry a pregnancy. Whether we transfer two embryos at the same time or just one at a time, safety is the priority. I went through a ton of blood tests and shared about those, so today I’m going to share about the next test I had: the saline ultrasound.

I’ve had two HSGs in my fertility journey already (2009 and 2014), which is when dye is injected into the uterus and through the tubes to check for blockages. This test is done in a radiology department at a hospital. I’ve never had any blockages, thank goodness, but in the case of embryo adoption, tubal blockages aren’t even important. I could do this whole thing without any tubes! What I need is a clean uterus, so that’s where the saline ultrasound comes in.

[Read more…]
signature

Five Thoughts on 35

By: Jessicomment

Today is my 35th birthday! Out of all of the milestone birthdays I’ve had, this one is by far in the strangest time of my life. Today, I want to share some of my thoughts on turning 35 and document where I’m at in this time.

35 Is Just A Number

This age for some people probably leads to a lot of tears. It’s another year closer to 40 and another year closer to going “over the hill”. But the truth is age has never bothered me. I’ve never been one to mope and moan about getting another year older (another year wiser). Every year lived is another year to celebrate. This year is going to be so exciting in so many ways! Whether I’m turning 35 or turning 60, I’m going to thank God for another year with my husband and daughter. I try so hard to live my life with zero regrets, so instead of worrying about how old I am, I focus on how I can live abundantly today.

[Read more…]
signature

More Embryo Adoption Fundraisers!

By: Jessicomment

We’ve been in fundraising mode like crazy lately! It’s a lot of work but it will be worth it to bring home these sweet babies. The last time I shared about our embryo adoption fundraisers, we only had three that were active. You can read about those here: Our Embryo Adoption Fundraisers. Since then, we’ve added SEVEN more, and today I’m going to share them! If anything, this should help give others ideas on how to raise money for adoption, no matter what kind of adoption they’re pursuing.

Between those three fundraisers, plus the first one I’m about to share, plus the amount we are setting aside off each paycheck we receive, we will officially have half what we need by October 15! HALF! I’m so hopeful that between the remaining fundraisers and what we set aside will help us raise the second half by transfer time!

Before I share these, let me preface this by saying that we have the BEST tribe of supporters. You honestly never realize how many people are cheering you on until you start being transparent and humbly ask for help. We’ve had people come forward and offer to host fundraisers on our behalf, and not all are going to be the biggest moneymakers, but they all matter. Not only the funds raised, but the heart behind them matter so much to us! I don’t care if it’s $20 raised… that’s $20 we didn’t have that covers some part of this embryo adoption process. We are so thankful for every dollar, every prayer, every word of encouragement we receive.

Also, I have to give a shoutout to my sweet friend Blair who sent me the most generous Erin Condren gift card [use that link to get $10 off your first order!] so I was able to pick out an amazing 15-month planner to help me keep all of these fundraisers and appointments organized from October 2019 to December 2020! I hope and pray that this planner will be the one to keep forever that chronicles how we got these babies and my hopeful pregnancy! So not only have our friends and family been generous with our fundraising, but they have helped fill other needs like this! It’s been so humbling.

Okay, so I’m done rambling. 🙂 Here are our newest fundraisers for our embryo adoption:

[Read more…]
signature

Archives

© Life Abundant 2019

Disclosure Policy

Privacy Policy

Menu