Officially Ours

This week we finalized our contract with our Donors, which means we are now the legal parents of 3 tiny embryos! Although the process of making this official was not extraordinary, the amount of excitement and joy we have felt is unimaginable.

We now have 3 tiny humans in our care and our love for them is beyond measure. For years, we have prayed for our children, and now they exist! We are officially parents, and our parents are officially grandparents, and our grandparents are officially great-grandparents. Although this is unconventional to say the least, our entire family feels this overwhelming love for these 3 embryos currently sitting across the country. In These next few steps, we are asking for a lot of prayer, as it will be extremely challenging emotionally and physically. We are currently in the works to get our embryos shipped across the country to our facility, begin scheduling our exams, and prepare to start our hormone process.

Now that it is official, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and anxiety. I am beginning to see the real fears of the next steps of my body's reaction to daily hormone injections, their safe travels to us, and ultimately their survival through the brutal thawing process and the difficulty of implantation. I have begun obsessing over my body and making sure it is in the best condition it could be for this procedure, as if I have control of the situation at all. I have let myself get so excited in preparation I nearly forgot how dangerous these next steps were for our children, and I am beginning to let that true anxiousness settle inside me again. There is a difficult line for me to identify by seeing the reality of the situation, and preparing our hearts for some of the most heart-wrenching days to come, having the utter joy of being a mother, and loving these children before they have even entered my womb. Part of me wants to pull back in preparation for the worst, so I don’t get hurt so badly but it is so important to remember:

These embryos are image bearers of God, and they are loved by so many, we will continue to fight for them regardless of how taxing these next steps may be. Not only are these embryos our children, they are our neighbors. We are called to love our neighbors.

So for the moment, we are celebrating these fears… These are the fears that parents get to experience, and for the first time ever I am experiencing that. As silly as that sounds, I am so thankful to be having those fears. We are sitting in complete thankfulness to the Lord, for he has blessed us in so many ways. Even in the middle of trials and heartbreak The Lord has been good to us, everything we have been given, everything that has been taken, and where we are right now has come from the Lord, and it is good. I write this as a reminder to cling to this truth in the upcoming weeks, as we prepare for hormonal changes, demanding schedules, and the potential losses of our children.

As for our support system, those who feel inclined to read this, we need your prayer. We are in unfamiliar territory, about to experience what could be some of the most difficult events in our lives, so please be in prayer.

-Pray for our children, please pray for their travels across the country to be safe, that they would be handled with care. Pray for their health as they have been frozen for years, the thawing process is extensive and the possibility of some or all of them not making it through that process is high. Please pray for their protection, that our doctors would handle them with care and protect them in the upcoming stages. They are strong children, in the most fragile state of life, so please diligently pray for them.

-Pray for me physically, having a hormone disorder (PCOS), I am very nervous of how my body will react to hormone injections. I am nervous of the changes that will occur in my body, and the painful process these injections cause. Please pray that I would be diligent in taking care of my body and my mental state during this process, asking for help when needed and being able to lean on my husband throughout these steps. Also, please pray that if it is God’s will, to prepare my womb for these children, that I would be able to protect them to the best of my ability, and support their lives through the implantation procedure and 9 long healthy months.

-Pray for Austin and I emotionally and mentally, this process is difficult enough, throwing hormone shifts into the mix makes this even more difficult. Please pray that we will be patient and honest with each other, pray we can lean on each other for encouragement and support when we are filled with anxiety. Pray we can cast all of our fears on the Lord, trust that his ways are much better than ours, and whatever results will be for his Glory. Pray that we trust in those words rather than just knowing them.

We appreciate your prayers in the upcoming weeks, and hope that one day our future can reflect back on this to see how loved they were and the hope that filled our family from the very beginning.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;[a]

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

-Psalm 100