Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure whether anyone is curious, but I'm happy to answer questions about our experience donating embryos through an open-placement process.

We were incredibly lucky and got three kids from IVF. Now we are donating our "extra" embryos -- six high quality blastocysts -- to another family.

The clinic we're working with submitted families for our consideration. We chose one, and that family liked us back. If any babies are born, we will be in annual contact with the adopting family until any offspring are 18.

We told my MIL about the embryo donation, and her mind was blown. So that got me thinking that maybe others would have questions about the process and/or our thinking about the whole thing.

I think you are good people for doing this.

you seem very attached to these embryos.

Anonymous wrote:Was the adopting family interested in your family medical history?

(We have embryos I would consider donating but we have a family history of depression. I would disclose that, of course.)

OP here.

The agency requires both donating parents to fill out very detailed health histories.

I'm guessing that adopting parents care about health histories, but also accept that they will never find embryos with zero chances of ever having negative health issues. Everyone eventually dies of something (except the Highlander).

Our families combined have histories of depression, cancer, stroke and heart attack. But we still reproduced.

Was the adopting family interested in your family medical history?

(We have embryos I would consider donating but we have a family history of depression. I would disclose that, of course.)

Anonymous wrote:Which service did you use? Were there any costs involved for you as the donating couple? Are you having hard feelings about knowing your genetic children are going to be out there but not being raised by you? I want to do this so badly, but it makes me so nervous that I'll have a hard time dealing with it once these additional children become a reality.

OP here.

We used Nightlight. There were no costs for us.

It's certainly a concern that at some point my husband and I may feel sad that we're not raising a future child. However, currently we are just thrilled at the prospect of helping another couple to become parents.

For me, my love for my children has grown as I have nurtured them. I wasn't one of those women who fall in love with her kid at birth. So I expect to feel a real emotional distance from any new child. However, I would be sad for sure if future kids didn't get a chance to at least know us a bit.

By thoughtfully selecting the adopting family, I feel that I am doing the best that I can for the embryos -- mothering them in my own, admittedly very removed, way.

Anonymous wrote:Do your kids know they are from IVF? One of ours is and one isn’t. We have not fully explained it to the 4yr old yet, but he has seen the picture of his embryo.

We were on the cusp of donating 7 embryos and chose not to because we didn’t want our kids to have to deal with genetic siblings if they didn’t want to. We were planning on doing it anonymously and figured in the age of services like 23 and Me, the siblings would find each other.

OP here.

Two of our kids are too young to know about IVF. We've shared the info with our eldest.

Based on our kids' personalities and the stated preference of our eldest, we decided that open adoption was the right step for the whole family.

Our kids get along really well. We spoke to the eldest about doing a closed or open adoption, and he was saddened by the prospect of not knowing a future sibling. We think the other two would feel the same way.

Of course, there's no guarantee that our kids and the adopting families kids will all get along. And in that case, they don't need to be in each other's lives. But that's true for all siblings.

Essentially, we just want to provide them all with the opportunity to know each other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was this through the fertility clinic or through one of these religion based embryo adoption services?

OP here.

We are using a Christian-based service because that's the only one that I found with an open process.

Two things to know:
1. I am Jewish, and was open about that fact in our application and all other documents.
2. Our IVF clinic recommended this service as a provider of open-embryo placement. Our clinic does not offer an open-placement process.

Did you find that most of the prospective adoptive couples were religious Christian or was it a mix of people who, like you, are probably using this service because it's available?

OP here.

The families seem mostly Christian, but that could just be reflecting the makeup of the general population.

The agency essentially curated which families we could select, and they probably didn't try to match us with anyone particularly religious, based on our own backgrounds.

Which service did you use? Were there any costs involved for you as the donating couple? Are you having hard feelings about knowing your genetic children are going to be out there but not being raised by you? I want to do this so badly, but it makes me so nervous that I'll have a hard time dealing with it once these additional children become a reality.

Do your kids know they are from IVF? One of ours is and one isn’t. We have not fully explained it to the 4yr old yet, but he has seen the picture of his embryo.

We were on the cusp of donating 7 embryos and chose not to because we didn’t want our kids to have to deal with genetic siblings if they didn’t want to. We were planning on doing it anonymously and figured in the age of services like 23 and Me, the siblings would find each other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was this through the fertility clinic or through one of these religion based embryo adoption services?

OP here.

We are using a Christian-based service because that's the only one that I found with an open process.

Two things to know:
1. I am Jewish, and was open about that fact in our application and all other documents.
2. Our IVF clinic recommended this service as a provider of open-embryo placement. Our clinic does not offer an open-placement process.

Did you find that most of the prospective adoptive couples were religious Christian or was it a mix of people who, like you, are probably using this service because it's available?

Anonymous wrote:Was this through the fertility clinic or through one of these religion based embryo adoption services?

OP here.

We are using a Christian-based service because that's the only one that I found with an open process.

Two things to know:
1. I am Jewish, and was open about that fact in our application and all other documents.
2. Our IVF clinic recommended this service as a provider of open-embryo placement. Our clinic does not offer an open-placement process.

Anonymous wrote:you don't have a legal right to annual contact, is my guess.

OP here.

We considered the issue you raised. All I can say is that we expect the adopting family to honor the contract based on our interactions with them so far. They seem very interested in maintaining contact so that their kid can get to know his/her siblings. Their attitude matches our own in wanting to use an open process. We want our kids to have the opportunity to meet any future siblings.

Was this through the fertility clinic or through one of these religion based embryo adoption services?

you don't have a legal right to annual contact, is my guess.

I'm not sure whether anyone is curious, but I'm happy to answer questions about our experience donating embryos through an open-placement process.

We were incredibly lucky and got three kids from IVF. Now we are donating our "extra" embryos -- six high quality blastocysts -- to another family.

The clinic we're working with submitted families for our consideration. We chose one, and that family liked us back. If any babies are born, we will be in annual contact with the adopting family until any offspring are 18.

We told my MIL about the embryo donation, and her mind was blown. So that got me thinking that maybe others would have questions about the process and/or our thinking about the whole thing.