My husband and I were praying about what it would look like to grow our family. While we were considering our own family, we were also encouraging two close friends who adopted children into their families. One family chose the path of domestic infant adoption, the other international adoption. We were challenged and amazed by the way adoption reflects God’s adoption of us into His family. We decided to start exploring the various adoption options available to us.
We did our research, attended classes, and talked to adoption agencies, trusting God would open and close the appropriate doors. This journey led us to the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption program through Nightlight Christian Adoptions. We felt so excited as we started learning more about the program, and we loved the idea of pregnancy and the pre-natal bonding with our baby. We decided to move forward with Snowflakes, all the while asking God to close the door if this was not the path He wanted us to follow. Through Snowflakes, we learned that there are over one million frozen embryos in storage in the United States. Believing life begins at conception, we knew these embryos deserved to be protected and given a chance at life.
As we worked through the application process through Snowflakes, we were especially thankful for the education they provided to families. We came away with a deeper understanding of adoption, resources we could use as adoptive parents, and many moments of intentional conversations and prayer over our family. We finished our paperwork in June, completed our home study, and moved into the matching phase of the program in July. We had created our family profile which is used to match us with a placing family with remaining embryos. We were successfully matched with a family three months later!
We had our first frozen embryo transfer in January 2019, and were ecstatic to find out we were pregnant! Our daughter, Lily Grace, was born in September 2019. Her genetic sibling, Cooper James, joined our family two years later. We are so thankful that Lily Grace and Cooper will get to grow up with each other. We cannot imagine life without them and are so thankful that God used embryo adoption in our life story.
We love all the small and special memories we have already made as a family. We have an open adoption with their genetic family, and it has been such a blessing to have their love and support! Emailing back and forth with them to share updates and pictures is fun and special. We cannot wait to share with our children about their amazing story and the loving sacrifice that their genetic parents made in that story to get them into our home and into our hearts.