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YOUTUBE: EMBRYO CREATION

EGG DONATION & IVF EMBRYO CREATION

In this post I’m talking about making a baby when you don’t necessarily have all of the right parts. That’s right guys, I’m talking about the first portion of surrogacy. Which involves, egg donation and embryo creation let’s get into it!

Hey readers! what’s up? Austin here with another post on becoming a successful stay-at-home dad. This is where I talk about Parenthood, making money from home, and everything you can do to be as successful stay-at-home parent.

If you’re new here, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel or following me on Instagram @austnplz.

STARTING A FAMILY THROUGH SURROGACY

You’ve probably noticed that there are a lot of diverse families around the world. You have the traditional family with a mom and a dad, you have single moms, you have single dads, you have same-sex couples and many of these families are having children.

Now I’m not here to get into the anatomy of the birds and the bees but I am going to talk to you about how some of these families are having children through the act of surrogacy.

SURROGACY IS FOR EVERYONE

Now, surrogacy isn’t only for same-sex couples, it’s for absolutely everybody and I hope that me explaining my journey can help all everyone hoping to have a family.

HOW WE STARTED OUR FAMILY

My husband and I have been working with an agency over the past two years to create a family of our own and great news, currently our little bean is due in three months! We couldn’t be more excited.

I’m here to share our journey with you and everything we’ve gone through up to this point. The first thing we have to talk about is exactly what surrogacy is.

WHAT IS SURROGACY?

Surrogacy is when a woman, carries a child for an intended parent or intended parents. Essentially if you can’t have a child of your own, for whatever reason, surrogacy is one part of the process in making that happen.

The other portion of the process is creating the embryos – which is primarily what we’re going to talk about here.

WHAT IS AN EMBRYO?

Hey, just so you know when I say “embryo” I’m referring to a fertilized egg

HOW DO YOU MAKE AN EMBRYO?

The donation process is where it can get a little tricky so I’m going to try to simplify it as best as I can. You can either,

• Use your own baby-making DNA if you have the ability to create your own embryos, or
• You can use a donor for the parts you may be missing.

In our case we had to use an egg donor to create our embryos. Once we selected our egg donor, we were able to send all of the required biological materials to the lab.

In the labs they created the embryos (aka fertilized eggs) and once those embryos were created, we were able to transfer them to our surrogate

OUR JOUNREY

So now that we know the basics let me tell you more about our journey

HOW DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE READY?

The first question that people asked us when we said that we are having a baby is, “how did you know you were ready”?

That’s a very valid question. It’s something that you should think about before you decide to have a family. For me, it’s a very easy answer and it mainly comes from my background.

MY BACKGROUND

I grew up in a large family, I’m talking like six siblings and I was the oldest. I’ve just always had that nurturing factor and I’ve always known that I’ve wanted to be a dad.

OUR FIRST DATE

Actually, here’s a funny story for you…

On the very first date with my now Husband, I told him that one of my non-negotiables was that I wanted a family. That’s pretty aggressive for a first date! Luckily I didn’t scare him away.

And here we are, ten years later and it’s happening, we’re actually having a family. How cool is that? Like uh it’s just insane to me in the best way possible.

OUR FIRST (FAILED) AGENCY

This entire process began two years ago when we started working with our first local agency. This agency was more of a boutique agency and they actually dealt with both surrogacy and egg donation. We worked with this agency for about six months before we decided to end things with them.

Unfortunately, their screening process was too focused on them making the decisions instead of us, and left us with very few options. To be honest, I just wanted more control in the process. We weren’t getting very many profiles and at this point in time, it’s something I had been waiting eight years for.

I was just ready to get started so I told Stefan that the current agency just wasn’t working for me.

EGGHELPERS AGENCY

After ending things with that agency we moved to an online agency called egg helpers and we have nothing but great things to say about them. This agency was a lot more our pace. We felt like we were a part of the decisions that were being made.

We were able to go through a database of potential egg donors and make decisions for ourselves. The best part is, there was no limit on the number of profiles we were allowed to view.

We were honestly in awe of the number of amazing women who were willing to donate eggs out of the goodness of their heart.

IN CANADA, PAYING A SURROGATE IS ILLEGAL

Now I should probably let you guys know that here in Canada, where we live, it’s actually illegal to pay for an egg donor and it’s illegal to pay your surrogate. So, when I say that these women are doing this out of the goodness of their heart, I truly mean it.

THESE WOMEN ARE AMAZINGLY SELFLESS

If you’re an egg donor or if you’re a surrogate and you’re reading this, just thank you! Thank you from all of us intended parents. Thank you from the people who are parents because of what you’ve done.

It’s just such an amazing thing and, wow I’m getting a little emotional here, but I’m just so happy that you helped us make our dream come true

IS SHE THE ‘ONE’?

After checking daily on the egg helpers website for three months there was this one woman that came up and I immediately knew that she was the one.

My heart just like skipped a beat and I felt those butterflies in my chest. I was so excited.

In my mind I was like this is real, this is happening! However, there was also a sense of urgency. I knew we needed to contact the agency and to see if this woman is still available

At this point it felt like everything was moving super fast. This all happened in the span of a morning and I had to tell myself to take a step back. I reminded myself that this is a joint decision and I needed to wait until Stefan was able to make an opinion of his own.

WE AGREED! SHE’S THE ONE!

Later that afternoon, I turned off my emotions because I didn’t want to influence his opion – which is super tough for me… for those of you that know me and those of you that are getting to know me I actually wear my emotions on my sleeve I talk about everything. So I did my best to put on my straight face showed Stefan the profile.

He took about a minute to scan it over and then, I won’t forget what he said, and I quote “Austin, I think she’s the one”.

I started beaming, I was smiling from ear to ear. I told him that I agreed and that night we contacted egg helpers and asked them if this egg donor was still available. We told them that we were 100% committed and ready to move forward with starting a family.

WE MATCHED!

Luckily everything worked out and we were matched with this amazingly genuine charismatic selfless woman who was making our dreams of having a family come true.

SUCCESSFUL EMBRYO CREATION

I’m happy to say that the IVF egg donation process went amazingly.

The doctors were able to collect 18 eggs. Of those 18 eggs there were 14 that were fully mature and viable. Stefan and I decided to split out those eggs (7 and 7) and we each fertilized them separately.

In the end we were able to create six healthy embryos three of which had half of my DNA and three of which had half of Stefan’s DNA.

THE DOCTORS SAID WE SHOULD STAY ANONYMOUS

But that wasn’t the end of the egg donation process… At this point Stefan and I had a big decision to make. We had to decide whether we wanted to stay anonymous from our egg donor or if we wanted to start a relationship with her.

WE WENT AGAINST THE DOCTORS RECOMMENDATIONS…

Our doctor told us that 97% of people stay anonymous and only 3% of people decide to start a relationship.

We decided to go against the doctor’s recommendations of staying anonymous and opted for starting a relationship with our egg donor.

AND THIS IS WHY

Our reasoning was that, at some point in time, our kid is going to understand that he/she didn’t come from just both of their dads. Our policy has always been honesty that’s how we want to raise our family. So it was in our best family interest to build a relationship with our egg donor – for our future child’s sake.

question of the day

I’m super curious in finding out if you would have done what Stefan and I did…

Would you choose to stay completely anonymous from your egg donor like the doctors recommended? and like 97% of people do? Or would you choose to be the 3% that starts a relationship with your egg donor?

Comment in the section below or message me on instagram @austnplz

I just really want to know what you have to say about it!

Conclusion

The most important questions to ask yourself if you are looking at starting the surrogacy process are,

• Are you ready for a child? It’s a discussion that you need to have.
• What type of agency do you want to work with? do you want more of a boutique agency or an online agency where you might have more control and finally,
• What type of relationship do you want with your egg donor?

Part 2 IS UP NEXT!

The next thing you need to do is check out part 2, where I talk about surrogacy our journey so far and how our little bean is growing!

If you like this type of content, please make sure you subscribe to my youtube channel for videos like this and give me a follow on Instagram @austnplz.

If you know anyone who’s interested in the process or is going through the process right now just share this post!

Alright guys I’ll catch you in the next one!

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