Adoption & Embryo Donation After Male Factor Infertility
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult your doctor, or a mental health professional, for the most appropriate treatment.
Welcome to our infertility story. My name is Sacia, and while I wear the “Mama” name tag with pride, I, like many of you, was not just given that name tag with ease.
If we rewind to about nine years ago, you will find two young people in love and extremely anxious to start a family. The baby name list was made, and daydreams of a little one in our 600-square-foot apartment were replaying in our heads over and over again.
That vision of our future took a turn two years into our marriage. After 24 months trying to conceive, my husband was finally diagnosed with complete male factor infertility, meaning we would never be able to have genetic children together.
It was a turning point in our lives, one where we could have given up on our dreams of creating a family, or we could rewrite our story of how that family was going to be created.
In true “Sacia fashion,” I was ready to take the next steps. Days after my husband’s diagnosis, we were preparing to get home-study approved for adoption. Giving up on growing our family was not in our cards!
Days after my husband’s diagnosis, we were preparing to get home-study approved for adoption. Giving up on growing our family was not in our cards!
After three failed rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) using donor sperm, a few emotional hurdles, and many adoption classes, we finally connected with our son’s birth mom via Instagram. We later witnessed her deliver our sweet baby boy! Since then, we have shared many memories with her, her family, and our son. We enjoy spending time with them and continue to cultivate a very open relationship.
About a year after our son was born, I learned about embryo donation. This occurs when couples who have done in vitro fertilization (IVF) have completed their families and choose to donate their remaining embryos to other infertile couples.
By chance, we soon connected with embryo donors through a Facebook group. How grateful I am for social media these days—I would not have my family without it! That connection later gave us a beautiful baby girl that I was able to carry, deliver, and breastfeed, despite not sharing the same genetics.
I didn’t think that I would ever be able to have that experience. We have cultivated open relationships with our donors, in addition to the other family that they also donated to. We even took an “extended family” trip all together. It was magical.
I won’t deny that our story is special—it is, but the grief that I have felt about our infertility has also been deep and real. I was sure at one point that the depth would drown me. I thought that our journey to parenthood wasn’t going to happen. Now, I can’t imagine what life would be like if we gave up when the journey looked different from our daydreams. We are still continuing our journey of growing our family. And while our conception story via adoption and embryo donation once felt like a desolate wilderness, it truly has turned into a hidden grove of flourishing flowers. The hike to it has been challenging, rough, and rocky, but at the top, the scenery is so beautiful, and the smell is ever so sweet.
