To our prospective donors,

 

We’d like to start by thanking you for choosing to donate your embryos. As you’ll

read further on in this letter, although we’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying

to expand our family using various methods, we weren’t aware this one existed until it

was mentioned to us almost in passing. The more we’ve looked into it, the more

perfectly it fits us given our circumstances, and the more it seems meant to be. We are

a 42- and 41-year-old couple, coming up on our second wedding anniversary in June.

We met on the dating app OkayCupid and began seeing each other in the summer of

2022. By the spring of 2023 we were deeply in love, and we got engaged in the early

fall of that year with our wedding following in June of 2024. We were both very open

with each other throughout our courtship about our individual desires to have children;

neither of us has ever been married before nor do we have any other children.

We began trying to conceive immediately after the wedding with as much

enthusiasm as you might expect from joyful newlyweds, however six months on, no

pregnancy had resulted, and we began to question whether it might be a wise

precaution to reach out to a doctor and have some tests done to make sure everything

was okay. A sperm analysis yielded good results, but on the other side of the equation

the news was not so good. Not only did we have a low egg count to contend with, but

our fertility doctor also found endometriosis on an ovary and reported that one of the

fallopian tubes was completely blocked. The doctor recommended surgery to remove

the endometriosis and try to open the blocked tube.

Ultimately, the surgeon was able to remove the endometriosis and achieve a 25%

opening of the blocked tube. Following the surgery, our fertility doctor prescribed a

regimen of medications and trigger shots to try and nudge the unblocked ovary and

fallopian tube into action. Three rounds of this treatment over a period of months were

unsuccessful despite increases in the dosages of the medications. The doctor told us

that although the uterus was healthy and would easily support a pregnancy, getting the

ovaries to release the eggs – even with the assistance of the trigger shots and drugs –

simply wasn’t taking place. We did have the option, the doctor said, of another

laparoscopic surgery to attempt to retrieve the eggs in order to try IVF, but we hesitated

and finally vetoed that option largely because of the cost – physically and financially – of

another surgery, versus the chances of that route being successful; the fertility doctor

did not believe there was a very good chance that any eggs retrieved would even be

viable, and our insurance coverage for fertility procedures is limited so we wanted to

make our next move count. That was when we turned to egg donation. We explored

the major commercial egg banks, but the costs associated with any guarantee of

success made us hesitant to engage with any of them. Additionally, while doing our Mresearch we read some reviews of the practices of these organizations concerning egg

recipients that horrified us and finally scared us off.

We explored traditional adoption of a newborn infant next, checking and vetting

various agencies to see which one would be a good fit, and one of the agency

representatives randomly mentioned embryo adoption when we were describing our

conception journey up to that point; that was when we found Embryo Solution. They’ve

been very kind and transparent with us, and the fact that the donated embryos are

coming from families similar to ours who have already proven the embryo viability

makes it seem like this path was just waiting for us to find it. So that is how you come to

be reading this letter, and how we arrived at this place and time. We’d like to tell you a

little more about ourselves as well to flesh out who we are as people and show a little

about the kind of home and family our child would have.

Husband: I’m 41 years old and the middle child of two wonderful parents still happily

married after forty-four years. They are currently living in [State]; my mother has a

doctorate in history and teaches at a university, and my father is recently retired after

forty years working for Home Depot. My mother has plans to retire soon as well, and we

hope to welcome them to our state as they move to be closer to our family here. My

younger sister has a master’s degree in social work and is an LCSW for the state. She

lives about ten minutes from us with my 7-year-old nephew and 15-year-old niece. She

has two additional daughters who live in California with their father; one is the twin of

the 15-year-old here, and the other is 17 and soon to graduate high school before

moving back here to attend university. We typically see them when the family comes

together at Christmas as well as when they come to stay for a month or so over each

summer break. My older brother lives in [State] where he is a maintenance

manager for a large chain of car dealerships as well as a professional guitarist and

sound engineer. We visit each other several times a year, including a yearly fishing trip

at a cabin he has on a private lake in the northwest part of the state. All of them have

been waiting patiently for our first child and are beyond excited at the prospect.

As for myself, I’m an industrial electrician for a large defense contractor whose name

you would undoubtedly recognize. I’ve played the piano for over thirty years and last

summer I started learning to play the acoustic six-string guitar. I love to golf although I’m

not very good at it, I enjoy fishing (with similar results to golf) and there is no opportunity

to get on a boat that I’ll let pass easily. I like to grill – charcoal or propane – and smoke

meat on our Traeger, although my wife and I have a (mostly) friendly competition for

mastery of that medium. I’m the guy in the neighborhood with the perfectly manicured

lawn. I aerate and overseed, fertilize, pull dandelions by hand and cut twice a week; I

find it relaxing. Our large suburban home is a regular venue for family gatherings

(holiday or otherwise) due partly to its enormous paver back patio and extra bedrooms,

and partly due to the fact that we love to host! I would describe myself personality-wise as kind, generous, compassionate and fiercely loyal to family. If I see someone

struggling, I’ll jump in immediately to help if I can. I love to make people laugh and

everyone tells me I have a great sense of humor. I watched my sister’s children grow up

and they could each attest to the plentiful and groan-worthy quality of my dad jokes and

puns. Each of those well-polished gems are now waiting patiently to be deployed for

children of my own; I can’t wait to use them.

Wife: I grew up in a small town not very far from where we live now. My parents have

been married for 46 years, and I have two older sisters and a younger brother. I also

have a large extended family with lots of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins,

and with a few exceptions they all live within 30 minutes of us. We are a close-knit

family and enjoy getting together for family gatherings throughout the year. They would

be a huge support system for our little ones to grow up with and are very excited about

us having a child. I’m a surgical technologist, assisting in the operating room during

cardiac and thoracic surgeries although lately I’ve been training to handle burn cases as

well. I’ve been in this career for over a decade and I love my work. I’m a natural

caregiver and I look forward to becoming a mom so I can have a family to care for

someday. As far as hobbies, I enjoy playing the guitar, I’m interested in interior design, I

enjoy playing video games and I love watching game shows. I also sew and make

blankets, and I enjoy cooking - including grilling and using our smoker. My favorite

holiday is Christmas, but I love hosting all the family gatherings. I would describe my

personality as kind, caring and compassionate. I have the patience to deal with anything

that is thrown my way. If someone is in need, I’m the type of person to either take

action myself or figure out a way to make something happen; I’m not the sit around and

watch type.

My husband and I both enjoy traveling and we try to take at least one cruise a year;

in fact, our honeymoon was a cruise to the Caribbean, and in a few months we are

taking a cruise from Tampa to Mexico with a large group of my family. Every August we

take a trip to my brother-in-law’s cabin up north in [State] to go fishing and

swimming for a week or so. It’s a beautiful place on a large private lake where we catch

walleye, bass and panfish. We really enjoy going to the local farmer’s markets each

Saturday morning in season, being on a first name basis with several of the local

vendors and buying fresh vegetables and meat. In the fall we visit every festival that our

area offers, including a very large one that celebrates covered bridges. At Christmas

we traditionally visit the symphony for their holiday program, as well as going to a huge

old mansion, the grounds of which are lavishly decorated with millions of lights

choreographed to music. We walk the paths sipping a hot cider and enjoying the

displays.

We weren’t sure how long this letter was supposed to be so it might have rambled a

bit, but for something as important as this we wanted to give you as complete a piof ourselves as possible without writing a novel. We’ll close by saying that even though

we might never meet, we wanted to just thank you. Thank you for reading this letter.

Thank you for considering giving such a precious gift to us, the opportunity and the

means to become parents. This is something we’ve dreamed about and want with all of

our hearts, the chance to pass on what we’ve learned about life to a brand-new person

experiencing all of it for the first time. We’ve been told it’s impossible to be truly “ready”

for those challenges, but one thing that we do know we’re ready for is to give it

everything we’ve got. Any child raised in our home is going to be the recipient of all the

love and support that two people can muster, and we will be both be eternally grateful if

you give us the chance.

 

Thank you