Dear Sweet Son,
We hope you will grow to know how much you are loved, how much you were (& are) wanted and how special you are to so very many people.
We were excited to start a family together and we never imagined the ten years of obstacles we would have to go through to finally get to you – you are more than worth every one of those challenges. You won’t understand all of this now, but here is how our journey went . . .
It started with fertility medications, multiple intrauterine insemination (IUI), then two failed in vitro fertilizations (IVF). Then a miracle happened and Mommy got pregnant twice within a year without any help from doctors! However, both pregnancies ended in early miscarriage and we were so hurt and confused. Why would God allow us to get so excited, only for us to become so broken-hearted?
We couldn’t afford another IVF procedure so I began to use a fertility monitor, started regular fertility acupuncture, drank horrible (looking, smelling and tasting) Chinese herbs, scheduled chiropractic care to help with fertility, tried fertility self-massage and yoga, and finally tried an at-home IUI kit that we stumbled upon. Sometime in the middle of all of this we became licensed foster caregivers but had to allow our licensure to expire at the end of the year in order to work with another organization to work towards foster adoption. Unfortunately, the foster adoption organization was shutting down just as we wanted to get started, so we decided to go the traditional adoption route and adopt from the Philippines. Just as we started to attend the adoption classes and filled out the paperwork, we were told that the Philippines Program was shutting down.
Because we had some money saved up, we felt a little nudge to try one more round of IVF. This ended with another disappointment because we couldn’t even complete the process because none of our little embryos made it past day three and couldn’t be transferred. The doctor suggested that we use an egg donor. Little did we know that this was actually the beginning of a huge blessing.
An egg donor was not something we had ever considered and we were not very comfortable with the thought of it. One day I was flipping through a copy of Focus on the Family, and I came across a page that talked about the Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program. We could adopt a baby (an embryo) AND experience an actual pregnancy? There was no doubt that this was all God and our hope and excitement were restored!
Fast-forward and here we are three and a half years later, continuing to thank God for you. How exciting life has been with you here and what an amazing Christmas season this has been, being able to watch you marvel in all of the wonder and joy of the holidays.
Son, when you get older we pray that you will be proud to share your amazing miracle story with others to give them hope and so they can learn about Nightlight and the wonderful Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program that we are so grateful for. Your story is a story of hope, perseverance, love and support from our amazing family and friends, and most importantly, the goodness of our faithful Heavenly Father . You are our sweet, not-so-little boy, who will always be our Snowflake and we are so smitten by you.
We love you “twenty times” and can’t stop giving you “huggies & kisses”.
Love,
Mommy & Daddy
