Deciding your family is complete, for most people, is a fairly simple choice, but for me---it has been a long road. I am grateful for this road because it was travelled mostly on my knees. I say on my knees figuratively because truth be told, I was probably sitting, but praying nonetheless. My faith and trust in God has grown more in the last couple of years than my whole walk with Him. Knowing that you have created life with the help of the medical community and then froze that life---well, it is a lot to process...really mindboggling for most. It was something that I barely processed when I started my IVF journey. I remember thinking…embryo, what is that…and having a lot is a good thing, right? The more you have---the better your chances are to have a baby? Honestly, I was ill-equipped to know the enormity of my choices. Some of the decisions I faced way back when, I made in less than 24 hours. I remember praying about it, but keeping it as transparent as possible---my prayers were about God blessing me with a child. I wanted a baby. I needed a baby. I longed for a baby. I-I-I….do you see a pattern here? As I look back, I can see God laying the groundwork for where I am today. Sometime in the midst of our journey, I remember Billy coming home from work and telling me about an organization called Snowflake. It was an organization where you can adopt your remaining embryos to a loving family. From then on, we knew if we had remaining embryos, we would adopt them to a loving family. Snowflake was our moral compass. We knew that we did not want to destroy any of the embryos or leave them frozen indefinitely, so if I could not carrying all of them, we would adopt them out. At the time, it all sounded so easy in my mind, but little did I know, it would be the most challenging, humbling, selfless decision I would ever make in my life. It was far from easy. Thankfully, our Heavenly Father has walked beside me during this journey. He has challenged me, He has humbled me, and He has stripped away layers of selfishness and ownership that I had toward these 6 remaining lives. He showed me that they were His, not mine. He showed me that He knew them before they were in the womb and that their life was significant, regardless of who raised them. He gave me the courage to let them go and trust what His plan is for their life. He showed me that---while I thought that my purpose in going through IVF was to have children---my bigger purpose was the gift of giving them away. Lastly and most importantly, He has forgiven me. So in August of last year we started the process to adopt the 6 remaining embryos through Nightlight Christian Adoptions -Snowflake Adoptions.
Jeremiah 1:5 - “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”
