To the prospective embryo donors searching for just the right mama,

Hello from a fellow IVF mom! First off, I’d like to thank you for choosing to donate your unused embryos – what a life-changing gift you’re giving to someone who is yearning so desperately for parenthood! I know you understand that to your very bones, as you had to fight so hard and go through so many injections, blood draws, ultrasounds, and invasive, painful procedures to create your own family. And now that yours is complete, you get the double blessing of helping someone else achieve that dream!

I’m here today to tell you why I think that person should be my friend, [Her name].

First of all, you are probably interested in knowing what kind of human being she is, and I can tell you without hesitation that she is one of the kindest, most generous, selfless, compassionate people alive. She has dedicated her life to being an educator – and after teaching in the classroom for years and years, now she works in a non-profit so she can improve education on an even broader scale. She has spent her entire career trying to improve the lives of children, and so many of her former students are still in touch with her because of the incredible impact she’s had on their lives. Education is often thankless work, requiring teachers to go far above and beyond the call of duty, sacrificing their own free time and resources to ensure the best outcome for the kids in their classroom, but she does it day in and day out with an unfailingly positive attitude and a belief in change for the better. She is sunshine personified, always able to find the silver lining in a difficult situation, and always putting in the work to ensure a better future for everyone.

But finally, after years of serving and enriching and uplifting other children, she is so ready, so eager to be able to do the same for her own kids.

Let me tell you this: [Her name] is one resilient, strong woman. You have to be, to embark on IVF in the first place – and even more so to stick with it after several failed tries. Each one of them breaks off a piece of you, and the strength it takes to glue it back on and keep going is indescribable. After going through two losses myself and many, many negative pregnancy tests before I got my take-home babies, I know the feeling. I think probably you do too.

Any child blessed to be called hers will spend every single day of their life knowing that they are loved, cherished, and desperately wanted. To me, that is at the very heart of what a good mother is: unconditional love, a safe place, comfort, warmth, gentle words and good advice at 2 am when you call home crying. Quite literally every personality trait that makes a great parent is one that [Her name] has in spades. Beyond that, I can tell you from personal experience that it takes a special kind of grit and independence to be a single parent, and she has that too – there is zero doubt in my mind that she can handle this. She has a great sense of humor (parenthood absolutely requires that) and she is someone who is extremely adaptable and calm in a storm, who can shift priorities by the second. Kid wakes up puking at 4 am? Well, there goes daycare… Gotta juggle everything around to make sure your little person is taken care of! Fortunately, she also has the benefit of a strong support network in her parents, who live five minutes away, which is also a vital component to successful parenthood.

I truly cannot say who would be more blessed by this donation – [Her name], for finally getting the child she’s yearned for all her life, or the child themself, for being born to such an incredible mom and raised with love, gentleness, and the greatest care. Seems like a win-win situation to me! I hope you think so too, and decide to be the angel who unites your embryo(s) with the mama who was meant to love them all their life.

With warmest regards and best wishes,
D, A Mom Who Wishes She Had Made Enough Embryos To Give Her Mine!