Hello! We are John and Rachel O'Dell. Thank you for considering a donation to our cause. Please let us introduce ourselves.
Who we are
We are a Christian couple trying to live the best life possible. John is a minister for a congregation of the Lord's church in Georgia. Rachel works for the local school district. We have two wonderful goldendoodles. We married over 3 years ago. Since we waited until finding the right person, we married a bit later in life.
We knew that as soon as we were settled we wanted to start our family. Things didn't go exactly as planned. In 2017, we found that we couldn't have children of our own.
Our Cause
We were devastated to learn we couldn't have children. After some time grieving, we turned to adoption. We wanted to be parents, even if the child wasn't biologically our child. We have a lot of love and a stable home to provide.
We were shocked to find that traditional adoption would cost us $30,000-$40,000. There was no way we could afford that. We also considered adoption from foster care but realized that we could care for a child and treat them like our own while the State worked to reunite them with their parents. We didn't know if we could take that kind of heartache. We thought we would have to give up on the idea of having children. Then, by accident or Providence, we discovered embryo adoption.
There's a lot of helpful information on embryo adoption at www.embryoadoption.org. When a couple goes through IVF, they create several embryos or new lives. Many times they create more embryos than they use either because they finish creating their families or are not able to carry a pregnancy. These couples are given 3 options for their remaining frozen embryos: they can dispose of them; donate them to science; or donate them to an infertile couple. The first two destroy life while the third gives life a chance.
The donated embryo is implanted into the adoptive mother and she's given the opportunity to give birth to her adopted child. We are pursuing embryo adoption as a way to build our family.
Your Donation
If you choose to donate, your donation will be used for the program fee to the National Embryo Donation Center and for legal fees to negotiate an open adoption with the couple donating the embryos. The National Embryo Donation Center is a non-profit organization with the mission of helping infertile couples through embryo adoption (www.embryodonation.org).
Their program fee is for administrative fees and running the program. The legal fees are to help us negotiate contact with the donating family. We would like our child to be able to stay in touch with them, especially if any medical situations come up. We also want our child to have the choice of building a relationship with any genetic siblings.
Any costs associated with the actual transfer or medical side of things will be paid by us. We are already completing our home study required for the adoption.
We certainly don't want to pressure anyone to donate to our cause. If you are not able to donate, we would only ask for your prayers.
Thank you so much for considering our cause. We greatly appreciate it.
Who we are
We are a Christian couple trying to live the best life possible. John is a minister for a congregation of the Lord's church in Georgia. Rachel works for the local school district. We have two wonderful goldendoodles. We married over 3 years ago. Since we waited until finding the right person, we married a bit later in life.
We knew that as soon as we were settled we wanted to start our family. Things didn't go exactly as planned. In 2017, we found that we couldn't have children of our own.
Our Cause
We were devastated to learn we couldn't have children. After some time grieving, we turned to adoption. We wanted to be parents, even if the child wasn't biologically our child. We have a lot of love and a stable home to provide.
We were shocked to find that traditional adoption would cost us $30,000-$40,000. There was no way we could afford that. We also considered adoption from foster care but realized that we could care for a child and treat them like our own while the State worked to reunite them with their parents. We didn't know if we could take that kind of heartache. We thought we would have to give up on the idea of having children. Then, by accident or Providence, we discovered embryo adoption.
There's a lot of helpful information on embryo adoption at www.embryoadoption.org. When a couple goes through IVF, they create several embryos or new lives. Many times they create more embryos than they use either because they finish creating their families or are not able to carry a pregnancy. These couples are given 3 options for their remaining frozen embryos: they can dispose of them; donate them to science; or donate them to an infertile couple. The first two destroy life while the third gives life a chance.
The donated embryo is implanted into the adoptive mother and she's given the opportunity to give birth to her adopted child. We are pursuing embryo adoption as a way to build our family.
Your Donation
If you choose to donate, your donation will be used for the program fee to the National Embryo Donation Center and for legal fees to negotiate an open adoption with the couple donating the embryos. The National Embryo Donation Center is a non-profit organization with the mission of helping infertile couples through embryo adoption (www.embryodonation.org).
Their program fee is for administrative fees and running the program. The legal fees are to help us negotiate contact with the donating family. We would like our child to be able to stay in touch with them, especially if any medical situations come up. We also want our child to have the choice of building a relationship with any genetic siblings.
Any costs associated with the actual transfer or medical side of things will be paid by us. We are already completing our home study required for the adoption.
We certainly don't want to pressure anyone to donate to our cause. If you are not able to donate, we would only ask for your prayers.
Thank you so much for considering our cause. We greatly appreciate it.