January 4, 2009 10:46 AM
Embryo adoption - a happy ending
For anyone thinking of adoption, you might want to look into embryo adoption. Here, Susan shares her story:
I am writing to explain just how we became adoptive parents of two beautiful boys. The first adoption was "traditional" in that our son was born, his mother requested an adoption counselor while in the hospital, and she ultimately chose us to be his parents. The main reason we were told was that we were Catholic and she wanted him raised "in the church".
After his adoption was finalized we went back on the list to adopt again. Three years passed, and while totally happy raising our son, we longed for another baby to complete our family. We prayed, had a couple of "maybes" in there, but mostly we waited. I prayed for an answer as to what we should do.
I began to notice in the publications from our adoption agency (Bethany Christian Services) the information regarding embryo adoption. I had closed the door on becoming pregnant long before this so the motivation to look into this option was not "just so I could be pregnant". I was really drawn to the idea and especially the fact that there were so many frozen embryos out there in "limbo".
My husband was very excited about this idea as I was and we started the ball rolling by calling our social worker and requesting more information. The agency partners with The National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, TN and that is where we went. On March 14 2007 I had 3 embryos transferred to me and found out 2 weeks later that I was pregnant with one baby, our little boy who was born November 30, 2007. He is a joy and a blessing every day. His big brother, who is 5 now, adores him as well.
So both of my boys are adopted and came to us in different ways. What stories we have to tell them one day! How wonderful I can say without a doubt that both of their biological parents saw to it they had a chance at life. How wonderful that I could give one of them that chance myself. When people think of adoption they think of domestic and international mostly. I am here to tell you and others there is another way too. Embryo Adoption saves lives that are frozen in limbo. The church supports it as well.
I just wanted to share my adoption story with you. :)
For more information:
National Embryo Adoption Center
Bethany Christian Services - Embryo Adoption
Posted in Adoption, Pro-Life Issues | Permalink
Comments
Thank you so much for sharing this Barbara. I had never heard of this before. What a great story!
Posted by: Tracie | January 4, 2009 11:06 AM
This is a wonderful solution to a growing problem. I found an enlightening book, "Everything Conceivable" by Liza Mundy which addresses the many moral and ethical dilemmas that are created as a result of assisted reproduction. Thanks for sharing this good news.
Posted by: Debbie Thomas | January 4, 2009 11:44 AM
I would just like to note that the Catholic church does not "support" embryo adoption.
Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical, Dignitas Personae (On the Dignity of Persons) firmly condemns in vitro fertilization and mentions "prenatal adoption" as unethical. (Read the whole thing, it's short!)
Some quotes from the document:
In this way, the practice of multiple embryo transfer implies a purely utilitarian treatment of embryos. One is struck by the fact that, in any other area of medicine, ordinary professional ethics and the healthcare authorities themselves would never allow a medical procedure which involved such a high number of failures and fatalities. In fact, techniques of in vitro fertilization are accepted based on the presupposition that the individual embryo is not deserving of full respect in the presence of the competing desire for offspring which must be satisfied...
...The Church moreover holds that it is ethically unacceptable to dissociate procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act:[29] human procreation is a personal act of a husband and wife, which is not capable of substitution...
...With regard to the large number of frozen embryos already in existence the question becomes: what to do with them? Some of those who pose this question do not grasp its ethical nature, motivated as they are by laws in some countries that require cryopreservation centers to empty their storage tanks periodically. Others, however, are aware that a grave injustice has been perpetrated and wonder how best to respond to the duty of resolving it...
It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of “prenatal adoption”. This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.
All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”...
Sorry, Barbara, I don't want to be on a soapbox and I am not condemning anyone. I just wanted to correct the comment that the Church supports it.
Posted by: Milehimama | January 4, 2009 2:04 PM
Just to be clear, at the time we were researching this option everything we came across was supportive of this adoption option. Not that it would have changed our minds at all. We will always see it as a life honoring solution and that is by far the most important fact to us as a Catholic family. It is interesting that in meeting others who have chosen this option we have found they DID NOT want to do IVF themselves. The reason was they didn't want to possibly contribute to the problem of extra embryos. I still can't believe when I look at my son that he was frozen and could have possibley been allowed to die. Thank God his biological parents found a way to make sure he had a chance!
Posted by: Susan | January 4, 2009 4:27 PM
Susan I am so happy for you and your family! What a beautiful sacrifice both you and the biological family did saving this little boy. I feel that until IVF and more specifically the storing and then potential destroying of unused embryo's comes to a halt, embryo adoption is the only way to save these little souls. Oh and I love his birthday, my first son was born on 11/30/98 - the feast day of St. Andrew - we had named him Andrew before he was born and he came 2 weeks early. He's my most spiritual child too :)
Posted by: Margaret | January 5, 2009 8:02 AM
The idea of embryo adoption has tugged at my heart for quite a while, but I am bothered by the fact that to my understanding, most practitioners require the use of the birth control pill to control the cycle of the adoptive mother. I cannot conceive of doing something that could potentially cause the death of my biological children in an attempt to give life to an adopted child. And it seems like a good knowledge of one's own fertility, using OPKs if necessary, could stand in place of the pill. And it seems like the pill can't be that great for the adopted baby or babies either. And what is the worst that could happen: conceiving a biological child alongside an adopted child? I cannot imagine how that could be a negative outcome.... I would need to find a practitioner who was willing to work within my natural cycle, however unpredictable it might be. And at the moment, I am still breastfeeding and, while I keep thinking I'm pregnant (wishful thinking), my fertility has probably not returned.... and I probably couldn't pass a homestudy (I'm awful at keeping house).
My husband and I were actually approached about family of family who were looking for someone to adopt embryos. I was very much interested but at the time, we thought I might be losing babies very early (I still do not know whether this was the case) so it seemed unwise to adopt in that manner.
But I don't mean to condemn anyone who does adopt embryos; I think it's wonderful! I wish I could find a way to do it.
Posted by: ycw | January 5, 2009 11:21 AM
What a wonderful account of a family who met their needs by meeting the needs of someone else. They gave both boys a future and a hope.
I don't think they need the church's stamp of approval on that. I'm certain they have the approval of the one who says, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these...you did for me."
Posted by: Elizabeth M Thompson | January 5, 2009 3:26 PM
ywc - embryo adoption is possible without controlling your cycle. in our particular situation (my husband has azoospermia) there is absolutely no chance that the pill is closing our relations to life, so we are electing to go this route. (Jimmy Akin actually addressed this issue on his blog a while back.) I was deeply troubled by those aspects of Dignitas Personae that addressed embryo adoption, and confused by the bishops'official statement on it, but we had a lot of time to consider our decision before we made it and are doing what we believe in our hearts to be right.
Posted by: ann | March 10, 2009 4:30 PM
Regarding the lengthy post on Dignitas Personae, the Church has not yet made its position clear on embryo adoption. DP took steps to define the issue and present the problems with it however it is a nearly unanimous conclusion among theologians, both in favor and against, that the issue is still open for debate.
One can easily find this information using search engines. I was particularly heartened by Janet Smith's defense of EA in the National Catholic Register recently.
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/17714
Posted by: Suzi | April 16, 2009 1:19 AM
My daughter was born Nov 30, 2008 through the embryo transfer process. My husband and I planned to let her know the truth about how we were blessed to have her and give birth to her. I have been keeping a journal, thinking I would know the right time to share with her, maybe late teens or early twenties. Now I am having second thoughts. I don't want her to find out from someone else, however well meaning or in a doctor's office or some other way. Any ideas about if/when to share this info?
Posted by: Kathy | May 7, 2009 4:44 PM
