Adopting a Snowflake
 

(I know what you're thinking and it has nothing to do with that.)

"Snowflakes" is a term for embryos who were conceived by IVF but for whatever reason, their biological parents aren't interested in carrying them to term. Some people allow them to be adopted and carried by other couples. I've seen the websites..you can even choose by physical characteristics, then you get a homestudy and when approved, you arrange for the medical part. Some couples who aren't infertile are adopting snowflakes.

Would you adopt a snowflake?

Isn't making the baby supposed to be the fun part???

I'm not interested in having children, but if I were, this would be a great situation if I couldn't do it the old fashioned way. But in general I'm all for recycling those embryos in all methods available, including stem cell research and usage. I would hope that parents that have these snowflakes produced think in advance what they're going to do with them, whether it's discard them, donate them to another couple or use them for research. But just putting them in the bank for 100 years seems illogical. And if you've chosen this method of reproduction (IMHO of course) you don't get to call religion. You've already bypassed God by turning to science.

I would have to say that all depends on who you're making the baby with! :eek:

On a serious note, if fertility is a struggle, the making it part can be less fun because you're so focused on getting pregnant.

I think adopting a snowflake is a very wonderful thing to do, and I might consider it.

The name makes me cringe.

Ditto. Even without GC it conjures up very negative images in my head.

I keep thinking "Alien."

Why adopt a snowflake when there are so many children out there waiting to be adopted.

Five of ours are adopted but there are several reasons why many people don't adopt. For starters, a lot of the kids (international and domestic) are badly damaged emotionally--even by very young ages--and lots of people don't have it in them to rescue them. I can not blame them...plus some of these kids would tear your family apart. You can't always know if the social workers are telling you the truth about the kids either; some don't because they want the children placed.

Also, some adopters want infants and in this country, it's costing $25-$40K now. International adoption can be cheaper but the kids are rarely young babies anymore. And that's if you get one; there are many scammers out there who'll fake a pregnancy or create an imaginary child and take your money and run.

State governments will tell you about the thousands of children who are available. I read a paper this week on one state that claimed that-- but once you subtracted all the kids whose relatives were fostering them, those who couldn't be adopted because of extenuating circumstances, yadda yadda, the number of actual available children was 313. And who knows what condition those children were in?

We have not regretted adoption for one second and I would do it again in a blink. However, we have also been through adoption hell with lying agencies, scammers, people who jacked up prices, etc. I can see exactly why potential adopters would choose adopting a snowflake over adoption.

Oh, I get it - so they do IVF and instead of only one egg fertilizing, they get half a dozen?

Yes, this is a lovely idea (although I agree w/ the Doc about the name being icky) because apparently the original parents are too big of dumbasses to think about what the friggin' consequences might be.

If that's not the deal, let me know, but shit, the parents should know that when they go into it.

From what I know, couples using IVF get many eggs during the egg retrieval and try to fertilize as many as possible to increase their chances that at least 2 will fertilize. The best two (or one or three) are then used in IVF. Couples must sign forms prior to starting the process to decide what to do with the leftover embryos. Couples can store them to use in the future (sparing the entire IVF process next time), donate them, or destroy them.

On the one hand, it would give the adoptive parents the experience of getting to be pregnant which I know a lot of them must really wish they could have. But something about it (including the name) gives me a creepy feeling. It's such a beautiful and awesome thing if I look at it one way, but I can't shake the feeling (and I've been trying for several minutes to focus on the positive). I don't think I would do this--I would rather just adopt a child.

A bit about the logistics of IVF, since not a lot of people are familiar with it.

When you do a traditional IVF cycle, you don't get to choose how many follicles are stimulated. You take meds to recruit as many as possible, however many your body can produce. That may be 5, it may be 30. Every woman produces a certain number of follicles that recruit eggs each month. Usually only one matures enough to release the egg (sometimes 2 - fraternal twins), and the rest die off. The idea with IVF is to mature all of them.

Why so many? Because the odds aren't great.

I've done two IVF cycles, and am currently 16 weeks pregnant as a result of the second. The first cycle, my doctor retrieved 16 eggs. 11 of them were mature and fertilized as of the next day. 10 were still growing as of day 3. We transferred the 2 best on the 5th day, and none of the rest were viable to freeze. Neither of the 2 that we transferred implanted, thus, no baby.

That was 16 eggs and zero baby.

My second cycle, my doctor retrieved 20 eggs. 14 were mature and fertilized as of the next day. 13 were growing day 3. We transferred the 2 best on the 5th day. 2 were viable to freeze. I am pregnant with a single baby.

20 eggs, 1 baby, 2 frozen embryos.

You can bet that I'll use those frozen embryos someday. In the mean time, I'll be paying $610 a year to keep them on ice. If someone wanted to adopt them, the chances would still not be stellar that they would produce a baby. (Note that of 4 good 5-day blastocysts transferred into me, only 1 is on its way to be a baby, and I'm only 33, a young age for IVF.)

If I wanted to adopt an embryo, it's rarely free. But, assuming someone donated one, I'd still be paying $5k-8k+ for meds and the medical procedure to transfer it into me, with no guarantee that it would ever become a baby.

IVF is tough tough tough. It's not irresponsibility that leads to unused frozen embryos. It's the statistics of the process, the need to have as many to work with to give you some chance of success. A huge percentage of those frozen embryos are not genetically normal and will never be viable. (Testing to determine if they are genetically normal is another several thousand.)

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but mostly I wanted to put some perspective into the situation. I think anyone who adopts an embryo when they don't have to is amazing, given the expense and the chance of success. But I would NEVER fault someone for having frozen embryos that they cannot use, and that they cannot afford to keep on ice until some kind soul comes along and chooses to adopt.

I'm hoping that's more the case and that this really is something all IVF couples plan for and think about. The way it was put in the original post was more like the couples were all "We got 20 fertilized kids! Oopsie poo! Who knew? Golly whiz, we're gonna need a bigger house."

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You have to plan for it and you have to think about it as part of the process, whether you want to or not. At my clinic we had to fill out forms saying whether we wanted to freeze embryos or not, and if we chose to freeze, we had to decide what would happen if one of us dies or if we get a divorce. Plus we had to acknowledge the cost of storage. This was required before i popped a single pill or stuck myself with a single shot. Plus, as you can see from my example, it's pretty rare to have a lot of frozen embryos. It does happen, but not often.

No one just does IVF like it's no big deal. It's huge. It's a shit ton of drugs, a surgical procedure, and a shit ton of money. I could have bought a nice car for what we spent on infertility treatments, with no guarantee of success. There's no such thing as a sentiment that boils down to "golly whiz" when it comes to procedures of this magnitude.

My husband's cousin did IVF several times. Each time they'd harvest a lot of eggs but only have a couple to implant and they wouldn't make it. About ten years ago, they finally had a baby girl! They decided to try once more with their remaining 3 eggs--their little girl was so hoping for a sister--and they had, haha!-triplet boys.:)

Really? You're going to attack the adoptive mother of FIVE children for pointing out that not every set of potential parents is ready/able to adopt an emotionally troubled child?

I think it was more that the phrasing makes them sound like they were used cars rather than children.

Depending on the costs, absolutely. The old-fashioned way isn't working, I can't take the drugs required for IVF, and the nest egg we've saved to care for a child would be decimated by traditional adoption. I don't care for the term "snowflake" either, though.

Re: terminology...I can't think of how else it could be phrased and I don't really care if someone thinks that wasn't PC. For a child to be taken from his or her parents, something horrible has almost always happened that has very often impacted that child emotionally...I mean, it is HARD to have a child TPRed in most states. Some children are resilient, others are not and so often, love is not enough to undo what's been done.

I would venture to say that after almost 30 years of being involved in the adoption world, I know whereof I speak. People can and do argue nonstop about the correct terminology to use in adoption but the fact remains and we have personal knowledge of this both for us and other couples we know well: the emotional and other damage done to adopted children while they were with their first families can be *massive*, even though it may not show up at first. Not all families can or should try to deal with it.

That's a super defensive post to something that actually just made me giggle.

Should've asked for the CarFax.

It's not defensive. It's the pure, unvarnished truth and people need to know about it.

"And sometimes those children are too physically, mentally or emotionally damaged for even the most caring and loving and financially stable of possible parents to deal with."

I thought of that and I'm not even really awake yet.

If you want to rip on the state for lying about conditions or inflating figures, then do that, but don't make the children sound like 1997 Impalas. It's not their fault.

Same here. This is a great option for people with a history of genetic disease in the family. They can have a child that is biologically, but not genetically, theirs.

I hate the name, though -- they are embryos or zygotes.

No, it's not, and I'd like to rip on some birthparents for damaging them. I want to rip on some workers for lying to so many fine families that I know of who were victimized and then blamed because they tried their best but couldn't do it.

Adoption, particularly of an older child, is not for some people. Demand all the paperwork you can get and talk to the former foster parents.

That said, your child can end up with problems, whether he/she is biological, adopted, "snowflake", you name it, and you may or may not be responsible for those.

And--the terminology I used, including "damaged", is frequently used in the adoption world. Not in places where the children can see it, of course, but in literature, research, and in frank talking in the adoption world. It is needed to convey the seriousness of what has happened to certain children, and "flossing it up" helps no one.

Well, "PC" is more for things like "differently abled." My mom (who was in a wheelchair) heard that once and basically said "That's stupid. I'm in a f'ing wheelchair."

I don't think "PC" applies to the comment we are discussing at all, whether you like the term PC or not.

Yes and I knew what you meant. Perhaps your explanation for your use of that terminology should be that it is commonly used terminology. Of course that doesn't mean that everyone in the adoption world agrees with that terminology. However, saying "I don't care if some folks don't consider it PC" gives it a particular tone and is almost like saying "I said it, what are you gonna do about it."

I still hate the use of "snowflake" so of course I'm not going to be a fan of some of the commonly used terminology. :)

So, your definition of "attack" has really gone downhill, huh?

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Oh no I attacked you.

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I'm a horrible, horrible person for ellipsising you.

lol

This.

And mostly I think adopting an embryo is value neutral, it's as good or bad as having IVF oneself or having a child in vivo. But it's not at all like adopting an actual child, infant or otherwise. I guess if you see embryo as 'person' you're saving a life.... maybe. There's no guarantee that the embryo would 'take' after all. Which is why IVF parents fertilize so many in the first place, and implant more than one. This shit's expensive and multiple procedures increase the cost significantly.

But 'snowflake' is stupid as is whining about being "PC" when this was nothing of the sort.

agzg nailed it, you said "Who knows what condition those children are in," as if you should have gotten a Carfax report.

And since those children will be able to find all that frank talk by about age 13 or so thanks to the internet, they're the ones who can provide further objection.

There's also a weird dichotomy in talking about people as objects in a thread that talks about embryos as people.

One of my Dad's friends was diagnosed with Huntington's disease right around the time his daughter was getting married. Since his daughter had a 50-50 chance of also having Huntington's disease, she and her husband decided not to have biological childen. They "adopted" embryos and now have a little boy.

(yes the daughter could be tested for Huntington's disease, but declined the test- at this point I think she would rather not know).

Re the term snowflake: fwiw, of all the number of people I know IRL and online, we don't use that term. The most common I've heard is "frosties" or "snowbabies.". So if you really hate the term but don't want to just call them frozen embryos, which is what they are, there's a couple options.

If you restrict yourself to adopting an infant (particularly one of the same race although there are reasonable disagreements over transracial adoption) that's pretty much the outcome. Yeah, adoption of older children isn't all cupcakes and rainbows, but when it becomes a competition for a healthy white baby vs any other combination of traits, races or ages it just comes off as selfish* to me. I'd rather see more people willing to foster and/or adopt older sibling groups. (And more services available, although around here at least there are a LOT of services and support, it's really impressive.)

*In many ways I see having kids at all as selfish, not in an inherently bad way or anything. And yes I know that once one is a parent it ends up being about the most selfless thing you can do, but having a kid in the first place is, whether for reasons of genetics or love or society's expectations, pretty self-focused. Totally willing to be convinced otherwise.

/would like to be a foster parent eventually, but can't afford it right now.

I just finally understood the whole point of the "snowflake" term. Duh, the embryos are frozen and snow is also frozen. I'm slow.

How about frozygotes?

makes me think of frozen yogurt...

OMG... even thinking about this scares me. If we do, it will be on ABC/ NBC/ CBS as next season's newest reality show :eek:

Carnation, you are pretty close to sainted in my book. Don't let the questions here get under your skin.

Me too, but I get that people have their own reasons for wanting a newborn and not wanting a child who is of a diff race (they think that the child will have all types of identity crises, not bond with them, they wouldn't do a good job of maintaining the child's connection to his/her heritage, etc.)

I know several other people who have done so with none of the above issues, or if they had them, they continue to work through it and are doing fine.

Neighbor Couple chooses not to and that is their choice. I think it comes down to whether they'd rather face the chance of NEVER adopting, or choose to look at older kids/different races/siblings. They would rather do the former and are fully okay with that at this point. When you choose to only want a domestic-born white newborn, you know what you're up against.

I can try to explain it. This is how it was explained to me (from our neighbors and another family friend who HAS adopted after years of waiting.) Warning, its long

So you decide you want a newborn. You contact a local (private) adoption agency. Not your state or county childen’s services dept. because you want a newborn, not an older child or a child with special needs or who has been abused/neglected by mom.

You fill out a mountain of paperwork that asks you 50 million questions about you and your spouse. You send them to the agency. You pay your agency sign-on fees. Lot of money.

You take about 6 months worth of classes on adoption, parenting, the financial cost of adoption, etc. Lot of money and time spent.

Then you pay for your homestudy. Homestudy is when a licensed social worker from the agency comes to your house, interviews you and your husband about tons of personal things: your marriage, health, finances, everything. You talk about issues pertinent to raising kids, how you were raised, your proposed parenting philosophies. They look at your home to see that it's appropriate for a baby. The homestudy worker is the person who decides whether you're fit to adopt. Based on all this info, references, etc. She/he compiles a report and sends it to the agency. The report either says "yes this couple is fit to adopt" or "no they are not for these reasons..."

You wait. And wait. And wait some more. Then the agency lets you know that your homestudy is approved and now you are officially a Waiting Family with the agency.

So you make a website or scrapbook about your family and give it to the agency. The agency keeps them for birth moms to look at when they are looking for a family for their babies.

You wait. You wait. You wait. Sometimes a year or 2 or more.

Like I said, the average baby being placed is not white. The average birth mom is not a perfect white woman in perfect health either. There's a good chance that mom has financial/drug/health/whatever issues/lack of access to prenatal care/etc (it's true of many birth moms because if they were stable, they wouldn't be looking to place their child.)

So if you are looking for a perfectly healthy white infant whose mom has had good prenatal care and is in perfect health, doesn't smoke, is well-educated, etc., you're going to be waiting awhile.

Then finally, a birthmom signs on with the agency whose future infant meets your specifications (white, newborn, healthy mom with no drug/health issues issues, etc.)

So birth mom decides what type of potential parents she would like to look at (many times there are hundreds to choose from.)

She decides that she wants her baby to be parented by 2 white middle class parents in their 30s who are college educated and have no other children. That narrows it down to like 30 couples.

So she looks at ALL of their scrapbooks.

The agency dooesn't rush her through the process. So it could take her months just to decide which of the 30 she's seen that she likes.

So you wait. All you know is that there is a mom who's pregnant with a baby that meets the things you're looking for in a child and perspective birth mom.

More waiting.

Finally she decides that she's interested in learning a little more about say 10 of the couples she has looked at. That includes YOU.

Exciting right? They call and you're all "ZOMG a mom is interested in us!!! We're going to be parents!!!"

Not so much. She only said she's interested. So you and the other 9 couples sign up for a phone interview with birth mom and her assigned agency worker.

You toss and turn for weeks thinking about this interview. Then it comes. Mom asks you tons of questions about things she wants to know about you.

Let’s say mom is Catholic. She is interested in you because your bio said you were and she wants her kid to be raised by Catholic parents. She might ask: Do you go to church? What religion would the child be raised in? What would you do if he decided he didnt want to be Catholic anymore?

They also ask the big questions: Would you be okay with an open adoption where I would have visitation every month? How about me coming to his birthday party every year? What would you tell him to call me? Mom? My name?

You obviously have to tread lightly here, (even if you're skeptical about having that much contact with birth mom) because if she thinks you may not agree to the level of openness she wants, you're going to get cut (for lack of a better word.)

So you wait for her to phone interview all the other couples. You don't know them, but you hope that somehow you stand out and she chooses to keep you on and look closer at you as a potential family.

Cue more waiting. Could be months. She has to make a decision and the agency does not rush her because it's all up to her.

You are on pins and needles everyday. Every time the phone riings, you think it's the agency. You're also on pins and needles because you know that at any time during this process, the birth mom has the right to COMPLETELY change her mind and decide to keep the baby. So it's always in the back of your mind that she could.

She finally decides that she is REALLY interested in 5 of the phone interview couples. That includes YOU. YAY. Again, they call you and let you know that she is interested in meeting you face to face. So you meet up at the agency for an in person interview.

She asks you a ton of question. Let’s say birth mom’s parents are divorced. She would never want her child’s parents to get divorced. So she asks you a bunch of questions about the strength of your marriage. Would you ever get divorced? Was there ever a time you considered it? Are your parents still married? What would you guys do if one of you cheated on the other?

You wait for her to interview the other 4 families and you pray to God that she likes you well enough to ask you back for the next step.

Meanwhile, you have to try and plan for a baby while cautiously keeping in the back of your mind that it may not work out. Remember, she may decide she’s not interested in you anymore. Or she may decide to keep the child. So you buy stuff (you’ve had a nursery set up since you started the process, but now that it seems like it might happen, you might go get a car seat, clothes, stroller, etc.) You are so excited because it looks like it might happen!

The agency might call you with follow up questions from mom. You answer. And you wait. Again, this is a BIG decision for birth mom so it takes a long time for her to make decisions. So you wait and every time the phone rings, you think it's the agency.

So you get the call that she has decided that out of the 5, she picked YOU and 2 other couples for the next step. The mom may be in her 8th or 9th month by this point. You are SO excited because you could potentially be parents in 2 months.

The last part, the families meet with birth mom for dinner. Sometimes she goes to their homes for dinner. Sometimes out to eat. (with the agency worker present.) You talk more indepth, but this is more hanging out than an interview. She already knows enough of your background, but this round is more about her feeling comfortable with you. You hope she likes you.

This part takes the longest. She knows that she needs to choose someone before the birth, but this is the final decision so she is really thinking hard because this could be her child’s family forever.

You wait. You are so close! You wait more. You have some meltdowns because the stress is high.

Finally, you get a call that Birth Mom has selected you to be the parents. The moment has arrived! Joy. You are finally going to be parents.

Not so fast. She hasn’t had the baby yet. Nothing is official until mom has the baby, signs the papers, and puts him in your hands (and depending on your state, even after that, she has x days to change her mind before it’s final.)

You wait for her to go into labor. When she does, you go to the hospital and wait. You are careful not to offend the birth mom by running in, being all “awww look at our baby!!!” and practically snatching him out of her arms because he is still hers at this point. You wait in the hallway util she feels ready for you to come and see him. You hold him, make conversation with mom and her family, then go home. And wait.

This part sucks because mom is in the hospital with her family and you are sitting at home. You know that this is the time when a lot of birth moms change their minds. They’re looking at the child’s face and they are totally torn and it’s a really emotional time for them.

The next day when you show up and it's time for mom to check out, one of 3 things happens.

1. Mom signs the papers, she cries, hands over the baby. You hug. She checks out. You go home with your new baby! Your x day waiting period goes by (mom has x days to change her mind.) She doesn’t. You live the rest of your lives with your new child (with monthly visits from birth mom or whatever you agreed to.)

2. Mom decides that she can’t do this. She does not sign the papers (she has that right.) The agency worker comes out into the hallway, tells you she decided to keep the baby. You go home to your nursery empty handed and cry.

3. Even worse, she DOES sign the papers. Everything in #1 happens. She checks out. You go home with your new baby. In whatever state you’re in, mom has x number of days to change her mind before it is final. You enjoy a week with your new baby and the next week, you get a call from the agency worker that Mom has changed her mind.

Our neighbors have yet to make it to phone interviews. My parents have friends who went through the entire process successfully and have a son. They also have friends who were selected as parents, but mom decided to keep her little girl a week before her due date.

As you can see, it’s not for the faint of heart. The process for adopting say, a special needs child, different race child, etc. or another type of child that is hard to place is very different.

My husband and I did a seminar once for local couples interested in international adoption. There were 13 couples and ten had actually had domestic babies in their homes who were reclaimed by the birthmothers. They knew that the chances of that happening in international adoption were practically nil.

Some states say that the birthmom can reclaim the baby any time during 6 months, which happened to a pledge sister of mine who'd had a baby for several weeks, and others have varying amounts of time. We personally know a couple whose child was reclaimed after 3 years because the birthmother lied about who the birthfather was; the real BF got out of jail and found out he had a child and wanted her...and got her, despite his police record.

So-- I can see loads of reasons why families would choose to parent snowflakes and some have them carried by surrogate moms overseas; there's only so much heartbreak you can take.

Good job, KV, on your explanation. My husband & I are in the beginning stages of this whole mess right now & it's really intimidating. (We're sticking with infant adoption b/c we don't think that, as first time parents, we would be prepared to handle a lot of the issues that come with older child adoption. Also, the experience of parenting a baby is something that my husband would really miss if we went a different route.)