We have had some really great questions so far:
Question: Is this our 1st adoption? Besides being adopted into God's family through His mercy and His grace through His Son? : ) Yes, it is, though we have been in the 'process' of adopting for about 1 1/2 years.
Question: Will you carry the child/children? or will the biological mother? I will carry the children and I will be considered the birth mother. The adoption of the embryos is finalized once the legal paperwork is finished and then they are shipped to our clinic. The children will have our names on their birth certificates from the beginning, once they are born. They are just adopted at a much earlier stage in life.
Keep the questions coming!
We are trying to bear the hot and humid summer that has come to rest here in our area (near Houston). There is lots of closet cleaning, painting, and school room/office organizing/selling to do. Those are my kind of jobs...in the A/C!!
i have a question - so in order to do this kind of adoption, you have to go through the entire homestudy process?
ReplyDeleteHow does the cost of this compare with a typical domestic adoption? How do they (the ministry, I guess) prevent this from becoming a "commodity" in the future (in other words, not encouraging IVF in the first place)? And how do you approach this topic with your adopted child? When do you tell them you have adopted them? Will the younger children (pre-birds and bees) know that this is an adoption? Just very curious. This sounds like an incredible ministry. I am filled with hope for those countless cryogenically frozen embryos in limbo.
ReplyDeleteHi Colleen!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I are also in the embryo adoption process. I know that Shannon will answer your questions, but I did want to take a minute myself to respond to your first question: "How does the ministry prevent this from becoming a "commodity" and encouraging IVF in the first place?"
Well, they're certainly not encouraging couples to go through IVF and freeze their embryos. However, the fact is that many couples will choose to do that anyway (and often times, they will intend to transfer all of their embryos later but can't due to becoming ill, divorces, etc). When I've encountered this question, I've tried to explain that it is the same question that would be asked to an adopting couple regarding an unmarried girl who is choosing to give her child up for adoption: "Well, if a couple adopts her child, then wouldn't other unmarried girls would have an incentive to have sex before marriage?" But, we both know that's just not true... Adoption has always been around and embryo adoption is no different. Couples will continue to go through in-vitro, just like unmarried boys and girls will sadly continue to go against God's plan and have sex before marriage and become pregnant and unprepared to raise a child. And just like these unborn babies in the womb need families, so do frozen embryos. Once someone has already made the decision to create them and aren't able or willing to have any more children, someone must be willing to carry them or they'll stay frozen or die.
I hope this helped to explain it a bit more!
Jennifer :)
Wow. Pretty exciting stuff Shannon!
ReplyDeleteThis is just amazing Shannon!! I'm dumbfounded! You are going to carry them! What an incredible way to adopt. I'm so happy for you guys!!
ReplyDelete