Natalie & Jon

Jon and I love kids and we both grew up with dreams of one day getting married and having a big family. When we met online, I was a college senior in Texas and Jon was working in Virginia, so we had a long-distance relationship for the first 6 months, only meeting twice in person. But we knew that we were meant for each other and soon after my graduation, Jon proposed at a beautiful overlook in Sky Meadows State Park. Of course, I said yes, and we were married four months later on October 24th.

Trying to conceive

After our wedding, we were so excited to start a family. We knew it might take a while because I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as a teenager and never had regular cycles. After trying to conceive naturally without any signs of ovulating, we were referred to a reproductive endocrinologist. Over the next 9 months we were diagnosed with severe male factor infertility, underwent unsuccessful treatments with a urologist, and had 3 failed IUI cycles because my body didn’t respond to any of the ovulation medication. At that point, our fertility doctor told us he was retiring from his practice and our best chance of ever getting pregnant was to do IVF with ICSI.

This was disheartening to hear. We longed for a baby but questioned whether we could justify the cost of IVF when there were so many children waiting for a forever family. However, every adoption route we looked into didn’t seem like a good fit either. During this time of uncertainty, there were many emotional ups and downs, but we had peace and hope knowing God was in control.

Looking into embryo adoption

Several months later, I heard a woman’s story about embryo adoption. People who have embryos leftover from IVF can donate them to another couple. Although not legally an adoption, embryo donation is often called embryo adoption because you are bringing a child into your family that is not genetically related to either you or your partner. I had never heard of it before but the more we thought and prayed about how to grow our family, the more the idea grew on us. We realized that what was important to us in having children was love, not genetics. Also, we felt comfortable investing financially because it honors life and gives embryos a chance to be born.

Coming to Shady Grove Fertility

I started looking for fertility clinics that had embryo donation programs. Some programs had up to two-year wait lists and others never returned my emails or calls. Shady Grove Fertility responded to me quickly with the details of the embryo donation program. The best part was that they had many embryos available with no wait list! Before our first appointment, I was nervous that the doctor would judge us for wanting to use donor embryos instead of doing IVF. However, Dr. Khan was nothing but kind. He respected our convictions and didn’t ask us to defend our choice. He was happy to help us start our family through embryo donation.

We were blessed with a smooth process. The time from our consultation appointment to transfer day was only 6 weeks. The SGF donor embryo program allows you to choose two embryos from an unidentified couple. When choosing our donors, we didn’t know their identity, but we were still given lots of information such as age, ethnicity, height, eye/hair color, medical history and even childhood pictures. Before we knew it, transfer day was here, and it was so special to receive a picture of our embryo. It was our snowflake baby: tiny, frozen and unique!

The good news

Two weeks later, we were shocked and so excited to find out we were pregnant! After an amazing and healthy pregnancy, Boaz Alexander was born on May 2, 2018. We are so thankful for Dr. Khan and the SGF donor embryo program. Our sweet little boy is an answer to many prayers.

Being parents has been a dream come true. Boaz is now 9 months old and such a happy baby. He recently started giving kisses (sloppy ones, of course!) and it melts my heart every time. Boaz brings so much joy to our lives and we love him more than we ever thought possible.

Advice to future patients

For those considering SGF’s Embryo Donation Program, I know that it can seem weird or scary at first. In the beginning, I was worried what people would think if I gave birth to a child that didn’t look like us and how we would explain embryo donation to our kids. In our experience, people are usually curious and supportive when we talk about it. And we have found creative ways to explain it to Boaz, like making a photobook that uses family pictures and kid-friendly language to tell his unique story. Embryo donation is a beautiful gift that should be celebrated, and we pray that our story gives you hope!