All of the i's have been dotted and the t's have been crossed. After jumping through a million hoops, the papers have all been signed and mailed. We ended up taking all three kids with us to have the papers notarized. Needless to say, no one asked us why we weren't trying for more children ourselves...
The hope is that the transfer will take place in just a few weeks - sometime in mid-June. The embryos are no longer legally ours and will be making a flight across the country this week (maybe even today!) to their new home.
While there were many tasks that Mike and I had to complete to make this donation occur, Jasmine has spent hundreds of hours working to make this dream a reality. She's researched, made a million phone calls, completed a mock cycle, coordinated everything for the embryos, and shot herself in the belly with more needles than anyone wants to count. If hard work and desire made babies (which any infertile will tell you it doesn't) Jasmine would have twenty by now.
Several people have asked how I'm dealing with all of this and if I'm having second thoughts. I'm not. I know that this is the right decision - for both our family and Jasmine's.
The reality is that while Mike and I played a role in this process, any resulting children will not be ours. Yes, genetically, they will be linked to us -- but we will not parent them. And I am 100% okay with that. I understand that it is difficult for many people to see my perspective. I've had comments such as: "These are your children!" But they're not. I have my children already. They are all napping in their rooms right now. And as much as I'm grateful for IVF, for being able to have children and experience pregnancy, the entire process has also proven to me that pregnancy/birth doesn't make a mother. The act of parenting makes a mother. Not DNA.
For myself, I'm grateful that we were able to make this happen. I'm grateful for the opportunity to see the fate of the embryos. I'm grateful that so many positives have come from an experience that was initially very negative. However, my most frequent thought regarding this entire process is feeling filled with hope for Jasmine and Ken. I so want this to work for them. I want to see them add to their family.
You can see the other posts regarding our experience with embryo adoption: here , here , and here .
The hope is that the transfer will take place in just a few weeks - sometime in mid-June. The embryos are no longer legally ours and will be making a flight across the country this week (maybe even today!) to their new home.
While there were many tasks that Mike and I had to complete to make this donation occur, Jasmine has spent hundreds of hours working to make this dream a reality. She's researched, made a million phone calls, completed a mock cycle, coordinated everything for the embryos, and shot herself in the belly with more needles than anyone wants to count. If hard work and desire made babies (which any infertile will tell you it doesn't) Jasmine would have twenty by now.
Several people have asked how I'm dealing with all of this and if I'm having second thoughts. I'm not. I know that this is the right decision - for both our family and Jasmine's.
The reality is that while Mike and I played a role in this process, any resulting children will not be ours. Yes, genetically, they will be linked to us -- but we will not parent them. And I am 100% okay with that. I understand that it is difficult for many people to see my perspective. I've had comments such as: "These are your children!" But they're not. I have my children already. They are all napping in their rooms right now. And as much as I'm grateful for IVF, for being able to have children and experience pregnancy, the entire process has also proven to me that pregnancy/birth doesn't make a mother. The act of parenting makes a mother. Not DNA.
For myself, I'm grateful that we were able to make this happen. I'm grateful for the opportunity to see the fate of the embryos. I'm grateful that so many positives have come from an experience that was initially very negative. However, my most frequent thought regarding this entire process is feeling filled with hope for Jasmine and Ken. I so want this to work for them. I want to see them add to their family.
You can see the other posts regarding our experience with embryo adoption: here , here , and here .