We have been married for fifteen years, and we've been on our family building journey for ten of those years. Prior to concieving our oldest child, we only experienced one miscarriage. Once we found out that I was pregnant, we were elated. At my 20 week ultrasound with our daughter, we found out that she had a heart defect and a kidney defect, and I was sent to a high risk practice, then eventually on to a prenatal cardiologist and nephrologist. I was told that our daughter likely had a rare genetic disorder. The second half of my pregnancy was traumatic because I didn't know if our daughter would survive to birth, and if she did she would need open heart surgery at some point. I also had to live with the guilt of being told by my high risk doctor that I had waited too long to have children (34), and that this was likely the cause of all of my daughter's differences.

Over the second half of my pregnancy, we resolved to let our daughter grow rather than testing her for a genetic difference, and to plan for the arrival of our first child. When our daughter was born, she did so on her time, and on her terms. She had a brief NICU stay, and came home with us from the hospital. At 3 months of age, our daughter went through congestive heart failure, and was scheduled for her heart repair. This was a success, and as a nine year old child today with 22q Deletion syndrome our daughter understands that she has a special heart, and she was given this special heart, body, and mind on purpose and for a reason.

When we learned that I was pregnant with our five year old son we were again elated, but changed from my pregnancy with our daughter. I also experienced more early losses prior to conceiving our son. My pregnancy with our son was spent in the high risk clinic, going through testing and heart and kidney studies. Eventually, when the doctor could not find any differences in utero, I was released from the high risk practice. Our son too came into the world on his terms and on his own time (fast and reckless). He is very much a typically developing boy, who takes in each day as an opportunity to learn and play. Although our son does not have any medical differences, he was given an extremely patient, caring, and compassionate nature.

Our children enjoy living in our area of the country. They like being able to go swimming and go to the beach, and play outside. We have tried not to overdo activities for either child, and have tried instead to follow the lead of each child and lean into their strengths. Our son has been playing tee ball, and is moving up to AA in the fall. Our daughter enjoys dance and art, and is preparing for her second recital and dance finale in a few weeks. Both of our children are involved in Cub Scouts, and have enjoyed participating in a shared activity that allows each child to have autonomy. We have also been a foster family with the Humane Society for several years. Together, we have learned to care for young and old cats and dogs with a variety of medical differences. This has been especially impactful to our family, because we have learned that everyone (and everything) has differences, as well as strengths and challenges.

We moved into our neighborhood and bought our house with the intention of raising a family in it. After the birth of our son, we chose to attempt to conceive a third child, and did. We were yet again elated, and our living daughter found out that she would have a baby sister. We set aside a room for our third child, and began going through all of our baby girl clothes and supplies. At 13 weeks gestation, we learned that our daughter had Turner syndrome, and I was told that she would not survive to birth. At 16 weeks gestation, our daughter passed away. A year later, we conceived another daughter who had Edwards syndrome and passed away at 15 weeks gestation. At that time, our doctors recommended IVF with preimplantation genetic testing. I had only three eggs retrieved, and two fertilized. However, after a week both embryos stopped growing and died. At the time, I was a few months away from turning 43, and my fertility clinic would no longer attempt IVF with my eggs, so we purchsed donor eggs. From the eight donor eggs, three were fertilized and two survived to be frozen. I had one embryo transfer, which was unsuccessful, and upon a second transfer attempt, our other embryo did not survive being thawed.

Thank you so mcuh for giving us the opportunity to add a third child to our family. This has restored our hope and faith, by giving us a chance to positively impact our family. Your choice to donate your precious embryos is allowing us to bring new life into our family, and we will be forever grateful to you for that.