You may have pieced this together already because I mentioned the two donor forms that I was provided by the clinic, one for the female characteristics and one for the male.

But I did not.

It was only through reading more posts on the forums for the Czech Republic that I started to get it…

These clinics use donor embryos and donor sperm from young healthy donors, mostly university students, and create the embryo specifically for the client.

Embryos are not left over from other families IVF cycles, but rather egg/sperm fertilised in the clinic based on my preferences.

So if I want a child to look like me, they will try to match my physical attributes to the donors they have available. If I wanted a 6’ blonde haired, blue eyed, child, they will try to create that embryo for me.

This is not what I believed when I made contact with the clinic…

It is not an Embryo Adoption; rather it is a Fertilised Embryo Transfer (FET).

After investigation I have found that this is one of the reasons for the higher success rates; the health and youth of the donors (generally between 18 and 30 years old). It is also, one of the main reasons the donors are anonymous. The other reason is quite simply Czech Republic law requires the donors be anonymous.

Coming from an adoption mind-set, I am struggling a little with not knowing who the donors are, because I liked that I would be ‘matched’ with the parents and have access to their information.

Following this new path, I will only get information such as height, weight, eye colour, interests, and level of education. I will not get photos or names or medical history or have any future contact whatsoever (unless the laws change).

And maybe that’s okay. I think for me, the idea of “adoption” is what I’m struggling to release, rather than the anonymous part.

Feeling like I was still adopting an already created life, felt good to me – felt better than creating a life within my body with a random sperm donor (the AI method).

Now, someone else is going to create life for me with two donors instead of one. And I wont have any information to give my child.

A part of me had hoped, when I was first looking at Embryo Adoption within Canada, that I could have an open adoption with the couple who donated the embryos.

I like the idea of open adoption (embryo or child) as I feel it gives the child an insight into where they came from and takes away some of the mystery.

Personally, I might have done well with a mysterious upbringing, but I know many who have struggled with not knowing their history, and I wanted to provide an environment where my child would not be in that situation.

Unless laws change over time that allow this information to be released – my child will never know their biological beginning. Other than the superficial details I am given.

When I discovered that this would not be an adoption, more a creation, I went online to search for information about “anonymous donors” and found that there are several clinics in the US that also do not share their donor’s identifications, although they do utilise unused embryo’s from completed IVF cycles.

Expanding my search, I discovered there are many clinics around the world that facilitate the same kind of embryo transfers using created embryos. Their reasoning is that an IVF couple often struggles to conceive naturally for years before considering IVF. Then (usually) they are older (so older egg and sperm) and often have failed attempts or weaker embryos to transfer. Meaning, the new recipient may have the same struggle with these donated/adopted embryos.

The creation of an embryo using young healthy donors for both parts of the equation mean a healthier embryo to transfer and a higher rate of success.

As high as 70% in some cases. That’s pretty high. Mostly because they are using quality, healthy, youthful parts to create the fertilised embryo ready for transfer.

While it was a bit of a shock to me to realise this would no longer be an adoption, but rather a creation based on my choices, I am still moving forward because my heart is 100% set on having a baby.

Who knows what the future holds, maybe by the time any resulting child is ready to ask the questions the laws will change in the CR and I will be able to request information on the donors.

One thing is for certain – however this child comes to be, it will be loved completely as if it were created from within my own body with a man I loved, or as if I had adopted the child with knowledge of his or her parents.

My heart is ready to Love and I am ready to be a mom.

Warm smiles and Love,