Introduction

When I write, I often have false starts. I usually have to scrap the entire thing and start over because the tone isn't right or I just haven't said what I started out to say. Life is full of these false starts too. I had a few before I found Mr. Right, who also happens to be Mr. Perfect, Mr. Fantastic, and Mr. Clean, sans the earring.

Once married, we had a few false starts as we planned our family. We wanted a family right away but for some reason the kids weren't popping out like we thought they would. So we thought we'd get a dog while we waited for God to work some baby dust into a dimple-kneed baby. False start with the dog. Think Cujo with super bad breath. Then, we decided Cujo was lonely so we got him a "friend," Gidget. Gidget was an even worse false start on the road to building our family. She had Frito Feet, as in feet that smelled like Fritos. Think of the overwhelming scent of Fritos you get upon opening the bag for the first time. That was the stench of her feet. She'd hide under our bed so at night we could smell her lovely stench as we put our head to pillow. It's no wonder no children were conceived while Princess Frito was with us.

We also had a false start when we decided to stop waiting for biological children and start the process of international adoption. Our first contry closed down soon after we started our paperwork. So we began looking at agencies and countries all over again. We settled on Russia.

The process was arduous but well worth it. When I say "process" I mean long, beurocratic nightmare wherein every single one of the one hundred pieces of paper you have to provide the foreign government must be hand-stamped by three different agencies within the foreign government and then sent to Moscow to be... oops, sent back to you because you forgot to sign the papers with your middle initial and now you have to get those papers resigned with proper middle inital, notarized, apostiled (you don't know this word unless you've adopted internationally), translated and shipped back to the three different agencies within the foreign government who all have to re-hand stamp the papers and then send them back to Moscow to be.... oops, Moscow just decided to hault all foreign adoptions for a few months as they reorganize their social service system because it's January.

Since our son came home to live with us, we haven't had any further false starts. We're the proud parents of ten children. Two live with us, Will and Mr. Cubby, and eight passed on to heaven. Those eight, plus Mr. Cubby, were adopted by us when they were embryos. It's a little misleading when I boast of my family of ten children. The good Catholic families I know are, at most, on kid #8 and they've been having kids for years. I feel good about what we've accomplished through God's blessing in just a few years.

I want to add that it broke my heart each time we lost children. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary, Joseph, Scholastica, and Benedict all hold a special place in our hearts and in our family life. Embryo adoption is not for the faint of heart. It is uncertain, painful, and draining - physically and emotionally. However, if it is something you feel you are called to do, it is a call that you can't ignore.

So, our second child was born as a result of embryo adoption. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe not. Suffice it to say, the embryos left over after IVF proceedures are not unwanted, nor are they incapable of living to and through birth. Mr. Cubby is a strong, healthy one-year old and former frozen embryo.

That brings us to today. Two weeks ago I started the drug regimen for our next embryo adoption. During that time I've had a few crazy moments because, I'll be honest, my body isn't keen on hormones of any sort. It doesn't like to make them and it doesn't like them introduced by pill or needle, especially not needle.

One of the crazy moments included me thinking that it would be a good idea to follow this embryo adoption through a blog. I didn't keep close track with my last pregnancy and I am wishing now that I had not only because my brain fog gets really bad with pregnancy but because I'm sure there will be other women considering embryo adoption, who would like a snapshot of how things may work for them.

So this is where I begin.