We both dreamed of being parents.
Our dream came true when we got pregnant on our honeymoon in October 2015. About 6 weeks later we lost our baby, and then struggled to conceive again for nearly 2 years. When the 2-year mark was approaching, there was an emergency situation where a baby girl needed a family and home. After many prayers and discussions together asking God for direction, we made the decision to open our home to her with the intent of adopting her. Long story short, there was another family that stepped in to help her before us. While we desperately wanted it to be us, we knew God had other plans for her.
Two weeks after this, we found out we were pregnant! We welcomed our beautiful daughter in May 2018. Two days after she was born, she was airlifted to a hospital and stayed in the NICU for a few days while they ran a series of tests on her. At nine days old, she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which we found to be a genetic lung condition. We also learned that it is dangerous for people with CF to be around each other because they carry unique bacteria in their lungs that can be harmful to each other.
Knowing this and that it is genetic, we decided to pursue a calling we both felt even before we were married – adoption! We picked out the agency that we planned to work with to pursue domestic adoption and continued to complete our adoption home study. As we continued down the domestic adoption path, we felt God was wanting to redirect us. We prayed continuously, started researching, and discovered the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program. This was exactly where He wanted us to be! Each member of the Snowflakes team that helped us successfully complete our embryo adoption was kind, helpful and expertly led us to complete the program. We were matched with a placing family within two weeks and adopted two embryos.
We transferred one of our embryos shortly after they arrived at our clinic, and unfortunately, our first transfer did not result in a pregancy. We took time to mourn our loss. We were committed to both embryos that we adopted and scheduled our second FET. With lots of prayers and trust in the Lord we transferred our second embryo, and ten days later found out we were pregnant! In September of 2022, we welcomed our beautiful frozen miracle, Rayna, home!