I can't believe it's been almost six weeks since Elisabeth was born. Even though she was eight weeks early, we joke that she's really six years old because that's how long she was frozen!
In 2006, almost exactly five years before she was born, we were married and immediately began trying to start a family. About the same time, another family in California was starting the in vitro process to start their own family, and was blessed with twin boys, followed by another little boy. Who knew our paths would cross one day?
We knew fairly quickly that we would face problems trying to get pregnant. While we never got a definitive diagnosis, my medical history wasn't pretty, and the abdominal radiation I received to treat my childhood cancer seemed to be the most likely reason that we couldn't conceive. Regardless, we pursued multiple rounds of fertility treatments, from high stimulation shots to low stimulation "natural" cycles, and surgery (including an ovary being removed) with no response or success. However, my doctors seemed to think I could carry a child...just not one genetically related to me. Thus began our journey toward parenthood.
I had heard about the Snowflakes embryo adoption program on the radio several years before, and had tucked it away in the back of my mind. David and I discussed and prayed over many options for starting our family. For some reason, embryo adoption was the choice that I always had the most peace about. If you don't know what embryo adoption is, it entails adopting embryos (not eggs, but fully formed embryos) from another family who has embryos left over from their own IVF cycles. The adopting family then implants the embryo in the mom and carries the baby like a normal pregnancy - it's basically adoption at an earlier stage.
For families who have leftover embryos, what to do with them is a big decision. They can use the remaining embryos to continue growing their family, they may choose to keep them frozen indefinitely, they can donate them to science/research, they can destroy them...or they can give them up for adoption. The family we adopted our embryos from felt - as we do - that these embryos are lives with potential. We also both feel that it's a gift to both families. For the adopting family, it blesses them with the gift of a child. For the genetic/donor family, it blesses them by knowing their child will have a future, or at least the potential of a future.
It took us a while to get on the same page about embryo adoption. David was slowly warming up to the idea in early 2009, while I was ready to move forward but trying to be patient and wait on God's timing. We were very blessed to watch my friend Taryn and her husband's journey with embryo adoption as well, and I think it helped to see a positive experience in person. But the real confirmation for David came in May of 2009. We were southbound on I-35, somewhere around Waco, heading to Austin for our niece Kate's high school graduation. While I was napping, David was fiddling with the radio, and stumbled upon an interview with someone from the Snowflakes program. It happened to be the same person with whom I had been corresponding about getting preliminary information for applying to the program. Neither of us believe much in "coincidence", and it wasn't long at all before David agreed that this was what we needed to do.
So, the wheels were in motion. We quickly filled out our application, found a local agency to do the home study, pulled out myriads of bank statements, credit histories, job histories, budgets, etc....all in the midst of moving to our new home. But we were motivated! The home study interview was conducted in August. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. For some reason, our home study wasn't actually written up and completed until December. All that hurrying up just to wait. God's timing, we kept telling ourselves.
The way the matching process works is that the agency matches families based on preferences. These preferences could be education levels, religious beliefs, whether or not the mother works, how much contact the families prefer, etc. They first send the adoptive family's profile to the genetic family, who says "yes" or "no". If they say "yes", the genetic family's profile is sent to the adoptive family, who also says "yes" or "no". We actually said no to two different, precious families before we said yes to this one. Those were hard decisions, but we both felt we should be completely at peace with saying yes.
I won't reveal much about Elisabeth's family for now, as we believe that is her story to tell. However, I will tell you that they live in California, and they have three boys (a set of twins and a singleton). They had nine embryos left over from their initial IVF cycle, and our doctor believed that four of them were viable. The embryos arrived at the IVF clinic here in Dallas in late May 2010. The plan was to thaw the "best" two and the "worst" three (these three weren't thought to be viable).
We started our first round of sonograms and hormones in late July, with a target of doing the embryo transfer in early August. We had trouble getting my lining to build up, so they added more hormones. Our niece PK was born on August 2nd (her due date), in traumatic fashion, lifeless and not breathing. It was a very challenging time for our family, and while she is doing wonderfully today (another miracle!), we didn't know this at the time. We went to the doctor a day or two after she was born, and for some reason my uterine lining had thinned out, not thickened. We didn't want to proceed regardless, because of the family issues at the time, so we chalked it up to a fluke. And God's timing.
So we cancelled that cycles and tried again in September. It still wasn't the perfect situation, and between trying to schedule the transfer around a business trip and my lining not being as good as they'd like, we opted to cancel the second cycle. It was really a judgement call on the part of our doctor. God's timing.
We scheduled a third cycle for October, and this time it worked. My uterus is on the small side, so they were more concerned with the maturity of the lining versus the thickness. Apparently things looked so good the doctor yelled down the hall in excitement. Finally! We scheduled our transfer for October 20th. We moved forward with the plan to thaw the five pre-identified embryos. The embryologist called me the day before the transfer to tell me that only one had survived, though it looked good. We weren't completely surprised, since we thought only two were viable. They asked if I wanted to thaw the rest. I said no...I was at peace about what to do. (Of course I had to double check this with David, though he didn't no I had already said no!)
The transfer went well, but I laugh when I think about how my doctor said that "Mrs. Steiner isn't known for the size of her uterus" while he was doing the transfer. I knew Who was really in control of the situation.
I can't describe the joy and elation we felt two weeks later when the nurse called with the news that I was pregnant. God's timing...this would become a theme for the entire pregnancy. More on that later, as our little miracle is stirring in her nursery.
