The Hobbs Family Embryo Adoption Story

written by Ginny Hobbs

My life plan was not that far-fetched:

Finish school.

Meet an amazing man.

Get married.

Have some adventures.

Make some babies.

But my plans weren't God's plans; he had something so much greater for us than I could imagine.

After three years of marriage, we started trying to conceive, and month after month, pregnancy announcements were popping up all around me, but we had nothing to announce. So we waited and tried, tried and waited... with no baby to show for it. Months turned into years, and some testing revealed that we wouldn't conceive without an intervention, and we chose not to pursue fertility treatments. I deeply grieved not having biological children and moved forward. We turned to adoption (Something we had discussed while dating and always wanted/planned for our family... we would say the question wasn't "if" we would adopt but "when"). We discussed whether to pursue adoption internationally, privately, or through the state, but could never land on the same decision at the same time, and in our marriage we wouldn't move forward on plans if we weren't in agreement.

Despite the plan to adopt, I desperately wanted to experience carrying a baby and grieved continually over that loss, and then one day we were reminded of a short paragraph that referenced Embryo Adoptions in the book "Adopted for Life" by Dr Russell Moore. Once God brought that desire to my heart and mind, I couldn't think of anything else... and after a time of (more) waiting, my husband became convinced that it was the perfect plan for our family. We completed our Home Study in record time and began the hormone & drug regimen to prepare my body to receive those sweet, frozen "Snowflake" babies. After our first embryo transfer: PREGNANT! We were elated. We saw that we babe's heart fluttering at six weeks, eight weeks and ten weeks. Couldn't wait to finally announce to the world that we were expecting! But some unpleasant symptoms, and at 11.5 weeks, that sweet babe was miscarried. Devastation doesn't even begin to describe our grief. But, thankfully, we didn't lose heart.

We tried again and had the most perfect, smooth pregnancy. After five years of trying to conceive, God gave us the most wonderful gift of the sweetest baby boy! Beauty from ashes... so much pain and grief were instantly a distant memory. We were dumbfounded by how much love filled our hearts over this perfect little stranger who made us parents. And two weeks shy of two years later, we welcome his darling baby sister.

We later discovered that our son had been frozen, waiting for a family for eight years before being transferred and beginning to grow in me, and his baby sister had been frozen six. How strange that each of us suffered through such waiting, yet the timing for these babies to be born into our family couldn't be more perfect. God is so mysterious and so good, and His ways are beyond imagination or understanding for us. I wouldn't change one detail of our story.