Our Pack, Our Values, and the Life We’re Building Together

[His name] and I met at a wedding, where we were the unofficial best man and maid of honor. He was 32, and I was 28. We started dating a year and a half later, after I moved to the city where [His name] and our mutual friends lived. We were immediately drawn to one another because of mutual interests and our shared commitment to social justice. The Quaker values of equality, integrity, community, peace, and simplicity have shaped both of our lives and given us a strong foundation for our marriage. That foundation has allowed us to grow as a couple and as individuals through unexpected challenges while feeling very grateful for all that we have.

Our daughter H. turns five at the beginning of February. Getting to know her and seeing her grow has been the greatest joy in our lives. She is our miracle baby, and our experience of parenthood is made even more poignant by our experience of loss and years of fearing that we would never have children. During those difficult years of recurrent miscarriage, we adopted a black lab who we named Guthrie. He came to live with us a year before H. was born, and he is now seven years old. It has been amazing to see how H. and Guthrie’s relationship has grown over the years, and it is one of the many things that leads us to believe that H. would be a wonderful big sister.

The four of us moved across the country together when H. was five months old. We already lived a few hours drive from both of our families, but this move took us even further away. It has been difficult living far from our loving and supportive families and building community in our new home state, but we enjoy traveling as a family and prioritize trips to see the grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We also love exploring our new home and showing our loved ones around. Although [His name] and I had both attended Quaker meetings before our move, it did not become an important part of our lives until we were seeking community in a new place. Our local Quaker Meeting is a source of support, intergenerational friendship, and opportunities for activism and volunteerism that is the cornerstone of the life we have built here. In addition to our Meeting community, [His name] plays the trumpet in an activist street band, I help to organize the only women’s running club in our area, and we have made friends and found community through H. daycare as well.

When H. was fifteen months old, we began trying to have another child. Our seventh pregnancy resulted in our latest and most difficult loss at seventeen weeks. After that, we tried IVF with PGT-A. We had two unsuccessful rounds–neither produced any euploid embryos–and between rounds of IVF, we conceived our eighth pregnancy at home which resulted in another miscarriage.

Since then, as H. has watched most of her friends become big sisters and brothers, we have tried to make our peace with being a family of three. We have a wonderful life together,

and we work to create structure and traditions that help H. feel safe, loved, and respected. Nearly every evening, we sit down to dinner together and light a candle. While we eat, H. asks us “What are we grateful for, pack?” (Starting when we adopted our dog, we lovingly refer to our little family as “our pack,” and H. has embraced this). In response, we all say one or more things that we are grateful for on that day. We frequently host friends for dinner or have family visiting from out of state, and we include our guests in this tradition as well. On Saturday mornings, I go for a run with my “Women on the Run” group (or indulge my latest passion of rowing with a local masters rowing club) while [His name] and H. make pancakes and FaceTime H. grandparents and cousins before getting ready for music class, soccer, or ice skating. On Sundays, we go to Quaker Meeting, where H. plays with her friends in the nursery, while [His name] and I sit in silence with Friends in the worship room. After Meeting we go downstairs for coffee, cookies, and conversation, and the kids often play outside together.

As parents, [His name] and I try our best to teach H. that her feelings and needs are valid and respected, while also teaching her patience and skills for regulating her emotions. This is different from how we were both raised, so we are learning as we go. We also try to foster H. curiosity and love of learning while sharing our values and interests with her. Although our house is not large, we have plenty of room for another child–they could share a room with H. for as long as that works, and when it no longer works, we can rearrange things so that both kids can have their own rooms.

Over the past three years since we stopped trying to conceive, our longing for another child has not gone away. Two years ago, our good friends and neighbors offered us their remaining embryos after their second child was born. Although we declined their very generous offer, their experience with donating their embryos to two families in other states has offered us a window into the process. When our fertility journey began, we did not envision embryo adoption being part of our story. Now we are grateful to have this option, and we appreciate the generous couples willing to use their embryos to help others grow their families.

We feel that it is important for our children, both H. and any child we may have through embryo adoption, to know their origin story, and we would love to have an extended-family-like relationship with our donors and their children. However, if that is not of mutual interest or doesn’t work out for whatever reason, we are also happy to take things as they come and let the kids develop whatever relationship works for them over time. Thank you for considering us as recipients of your embryos.