Embryo Adoption When You're Not Adopting Anymore

I haven't really posted too many updates on the embryo adoption process, because everything else was so much more front-of-mind. But we are still involved in it, which is more than a little strange given our circumstance.

Giving another couple a chance at conception, pregnancy, and parenting with the embryos we couldn't transfer has a slightly different feeling now that we aren't going to be parents anymore.

It still feels absolutely like the right decision. But now I really don't know how things will feel either way that this process goes.

The couple who have the embryos previously known as ours endured a negative test in May when they transferred another embryo that they'd had from a different family. I had mixed emotions because of course I was sad for them, they have been through so much grief through their infertility journey, but it also meant that "our" embryos were next in line for a chance. I was very sad for them, but at the same time I felt hope that maybe it will be our embryos that bring them the happiness we never reached. And a little guilt that I was secretly glad that we were closer to finding out how this will all play out.

They are transferring embryos this month (um, only a couple days left so I'm feeling a little antsy) and I have no idea if they are the ones that are my eggs and donor sperm or donor eggs and Bryce's sperm. I don't know if they planned to do what we would have done, had I been able to get to transfer at the end -- thaw the 2PNs (donor egg) and see what grows, then have the blasts (donor sperm) for backup if they don't grow to whatever stage they would need to get to to transfer. I feel like I am living vicariously through this couple and I don't quite have enough information so I'm doing it blindfolded.

Which is appropriate in some ways, you know? Because while I have a vested interest in what happens with these embryos, they aren't mine anymore. If they are successful (and I really, really hope they are) we will have a very strange place on the family tree indeed. We will get updates, and then letters and pictures, and we'll get to see what a child we created at the embryonic stage would have looked like, without it actually being our child.

And now, we will be on the sidelines watching all this play out without the benefit of being parents ourselves. Which in a way makes us feel more vested in what happens, but not in an inappropriate way.

We were talking about the embryos the other day, and I can say honestly that Bryce is a better person than I am. He thinks of the donation as mainly giving another couple a chance at what we couldn't have. He thinks of the couple first and foremost, and that he can give them something amazing hopefully with this gift. Which made me feel a little badly, because while I absolutely see the parenting possibilities of the couple as an amazing benefit of the donation/adoption, I thought more about the embryos and the chance they would get. I've said before that I do not believe in personhood as a general rule, but these embryos have a special place in my heart, because they're the only ones that still exist that have a piece of me or Bryce in them. It's probably easier given that none of them are BOTH of us, but it is still a funny thing, to have 8 of the 35 we created still out there in limbo, tiny cellular masses of different developmental levels just brimming with possibility.

And I'm okay that the possibility lies with someone else. There wasn't possibility with me anymore, and surrogacy is not an option for us. This is the best place for them to go. They will have a chance, and give someone else who knows our pain the chance we didn't have. And, selfishly, maybe we'll get answers.

If they are successful, if they get pregnant and stay that way, then we will know with some certainty that the issue was with my uterus, for sure. The ultimate issue, I should say. It will be hard, but also a release. To know would allow me to let go of some of the burden I hang onto. It will hurt, and there's a string of What Ifs that could strangle me easily if I let it, but it will also be peaceful to know an answer, finally. Also to know that we gave those little babylings a life, even if it's not with us. Which is hard to think on, that someone else is going to have a nursery and a child with the towheaded curly hair I envisioned, and I sit here typing in my office that has a smattering of board books and a little corner of wall decal to hint at what once could have been its purpose.

But it is a hopeful thought. I hope that these embryos are the answer for this couple who's been left answerless and grieving too many times. I hope that they have at least two children, one from each set, so that we each get the chance to have a person out there who shares our genetic legacy. That would be so cool. I don't know what would happen if only one set works, and one of us has that and the other doesn't, that would be difficult but no more so than any other situation we've found ourselves in over the past 8 years. I refuse to entertain a third option. I have to believe that somehow, something will go right somewhere in this sticky family building web we wove and tangled.

It will help ease the loss of the other 27 embryos that came and went, some more swiftly than others, if some of the remaining 8 can make it to another plane of existence. I wish it had been with us, but it makes me feel better to know that they have a better chance with this other family. Even better that we get the option of knowing what happens to them. Who knows what could happen? How strange it is to receive a call or email updating me on the progress of a cycle (or a pregnancy hopefully) that has so very little to do with us...and yet has everything to do with us. From a distance. Like looking in on some other dimension of possibility that's not for us but that we are linked to nonetheless.

I am grateful that this option exists. I am nervous for the couple who is probably far more nervous than I am about all the possibilities for joy and loss. I am hoping that everything goes well on all counts this time: for the couple's hopes and dreams, for the embryos' chance to be, for our closure and lingering feelings of loss. I would love to see something beautiful emerge from the ashes of our own hopes.