Chris & Victoria Deal's IVF Journey
Donation protected
As of 6/15/2021 we have received $25,670.00 including the amounts through GoFundme. We have been so humbled and blessed by all of the contributions & can't thank you all enough!
Our desire to bring children into this world is based on God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28).
Ever since we were children, Victoria and I have had a plan to eventually start our own family, with many children. We see the home as the greatest mission field and truly want to nurture and disciple our children to know Christ and trust in Him for all things.
Our struggle with infertility began 4 ½ years ago when we began trying to conceive. After trying for 2 ½ years on our own with no success, we decided to seek medical help. We started with traditional “timing methods.” However, time and time again we were disappointed to find out we were not pregnant. The next step for us was IUI treatments . This is a painstaking process that we followed with diligence and prayerful hope. Unfortunately, many attempts at this procedure have proved to be unsuccessful.
With each negative IUI result, we have tried to weather this in a way that is God-honoring and draws upon His strength. Yet, there have been countless waves of raw emotion, along with feelings like we should just give up. Even the most innocent questions, like “When are you two going to have kids?” from those that mean well can trigger pangs of despair. Nothing brings us more joy than when we get to be a part of the lives of our families at Church. We get so excited when our friends or family are expecting their own little miracles, but the lingering emotions are often confusing. The joy we feel for our friend’s pregnancies is often accompanied by a longing to join them with having kids of our own.
1 out of 8 couples suffer from infertility, and our hearts go out to them, having experienced this ourselves. Although there have been many trials throughout this season of our lives, we have prayerfully decided to not give up. After lots of prayer, research and counsel from our friends, family & Pastors we have decided to move forward in our journey to bring children into the world. We are in the final stages of deciding which route we are going to take and we wanted to be transparent with you all in our decision making process. We are considering two options at this time: a modified version of IVF and Snowflake Adoption.
What is IVF and the modified version we are considering?
As Christians, we believe that life begins at conception and that every embryo is a gift from God. This is why we cannot in good conscience follow the standard IVF process. During IVF, hormones are injected into the body to create as many eggs as possible. The eggs are retrieved and fertilized to create embryos. Next the doctor runs genetic testing and grades the embryos. Embryos deemed “abnormal” are discarded (in other words aborted) or frozen permanently. Then you select the embryos that you want implanted and the remaining ones are frozen for use at a later date, if ever. We really struggled in our conscience over this. After careful consideration we came to the conclusion that as Christians, the idea of discarding embryos or freezing our children was not something we could live with.
We have found an IVF clinic in San Diego(Learn more ->Pearl Mini IVF ) that will help to create no more than the number of embryos that can be safely implanted into the womb at one time and do not have to be discarded or frozen. The process still requires many of the same steps as traditional IVF, but prevents the creation of excess embryos that would otherwise not be used or would need to be frozen.
What is Snowflake Adoption (<~~Click Here for more info)?
While doing our research on IVF we learned that there are an estimated 1 million frozen embryos in the United States today. This means that 1 million souls have been created and are sitting in cryogenic storage tanks. The majority of these embryos will never be implanted and given a chance at life. Snowflake adoption is a way for us to adopt an embryo(s) and then follow the 2nd half of the IVF process by implanting them into Victoria's womb to go through a normal pregnancy. This is an amazing picture of the Gospel, as God saves and adopts us as His children. This type of IVF provides all of the same benefits of a natural pregnancy and birth, just without our own DNA. It also allows the benefits of adoption without all of the legal red tape and drawbacks associated with the typical adoption process at a significantly cheaper cost. Multiple embryos from the same family can be adopted so that our children would be biological siblings.
We need your help.
Would you pray for us? With either option, there will be a number of medical procedures Victoria will have to endure to bring us to the finish line. While we are excited to start this journey, there is the very real potential of losses during this process and so we ask for your prayers.
-Pray for us to continue to trust in God's Sovereignty throughout all the ups & downs of this journey, as there will be many.
-Pray for the Doctors & Nurses that will be involved in the process. That God would guide their hands in all of the medical procedures.
-Pray for Victoria's body, that there would be no complications from any of the medical procedures.
-Pray for Chris to support & care for Victoria throughout this journey..
-Pray that we would have joy throughout this journey.
-Pray that God would prepare us to be the best parents that we can be.
-Pray for us to have discernment in the decisions we will face & strength to endure any painful losses during the journey, should they occur.
- Pray for our future children, fearfully and wonderfully made by God for a purpose and time that only He knows.
-Pray that God would lead us to the embryos he wants us to care for should we choose the Snowflake adoption route.
Would you like to support us financially?
We trust God will provide financially and we are extremely grateful to our family and friends who have expressed a desire to support us in this way.
Either of these options will end up costing between $20,000-$30,000 including all of the medications and follow up visits associated, with the potential of those costs being higher if there are any complications. We would like to begin the process as soon as possible and your support can help us to begin sooner.
Should you prayerfully feel a desire to help support us, there are 3 ways you can do so:
1) Donate via GoFundme - GoFundme charges an online processing fee (1.9% +.30 USD per transaction). Your donations will be decreased by this amount.
2) Venmo us directly @christopher-deal-5, please mark as private and add a note mentioning Fertility.
3) You may also send a check payable to "Chris and Victoria Deal". In the memo line, please write "Fertility gift". Please mail to 5630 Caminito Roberto San Diego CA 92111.
Thank you for considering this request and please keep us in your prayers.
In Christ,
Chris and Victoria Deal
PS- We have created a private facebook group called “Chris and Victoria Deals IVF Journey ” where we plan to track our process and provide updates to anybody that wants to follow our journey.
Our desire to bring children into this world is based on God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28).
Ever since we were children, Victoria and I have had a plan to eventually start our own family, with many children. We see the home as the greatest mission field and truly want to nurture and disciple our children to know Christ and trust in Him for all things.
Our struggle with infertility began 4 ½ years ago when we began trying to conceive. After trying for 2 ½ years on our own with no success, we decided to seek medical help. We started with traditional “timing methods.” However, time and time again we were disappointed to find out we were not pregnant. The next step for us was IUI treatments . This is a painstaking process that we followed with diligence and prayerful hope. Unfortunately, many attempts at this procedure have proved to be unsuccessful.
With each negative IUI result, we have tried to weather this in a way that is God-honoring and draws upon His strength. Yet, there have been countless waves of raw emotion, along with feelings like we should just give up. Even the most innocent questions, like “When are you two going to have kids?” from those that mean well can trigger pangs of despair. Nothing brings us more joy than when we get to be a part of the lives of our families at Church. We get so excited when our friends or family are expecting their own little miracles, but the lingering emotions are often confusing. The joy we feel for our friend’s pregnancies is often accompanied by a longing to join them with having kids of our own.
1 out of 8 couples suffer from infertility, and our hearts go out to them, having experienced this ourselves. Although there have been many trials throughout this season of our lives, we have prayerfully decided to not give up. After lots of prayer, research and counsel from our friends, family & Pastors we have decided to move forward in our journey to bring children into the world. We are in the final stages of deciding which route we are going to take and we wanted to be transparent with you all in our decision making process. We are considering two options at this time: a modified version of IVF and Snowflake Adoption.
What is IVF and the modified version we are considering?
As Christians, we believe that life begins at conception and that every embryo is a gift from God. This is why we cannot in good conscience follow the standard IVF process. During IVF, hormones are injected into the body to create as many eggs as possible. The eggs are retrieved and fertilized to create embryos. Next the doctor runs genetic testing and grades the embryos. Embryos deemed “abnormal” are discarded (in other words aborted) or frozen permanently. Then you select the embryos that you want implanted and the remaining ones are frozen for use at a later date, if ever. We really struggled in our conscience over this. After careful consideration we came to the conclusion that as Christians, the idea of discarding embryos or freezing our children was not something we could live with.
We have found an IVF clinic in San Diego(Learn more ->Pearl Mini IVF ) that will help to create no more than the number of embryos that can be safely implanted into the womb at one time and do not have to be discarded or frozen. The process still requires many of the same steps as traditional IVF, but prevents the creation of excess embryos that would otherwise not be used or would need to be frozen.
What is Snowflake Adoption (<~~Click Here for more info)?
While doing our research on IVF we learned that there are an estimated 1 million frozen embryos in the United States today. This means that 1 million souls have been created and are sitting in cryogenic storage tanks. The majority of these embryos will never be implanted and given a chance at life. Snowflake adoption is a way for us to adopt an embryo(s) and then follow the 2nd half of the IVF process by implanting them into Victoria's womb to go through a normal pregnancy. This is an amazing picture of the Gospel, as God saves and adopts us as His children. This type of IVF provides all of the same benefits of a natural pregnancy and birth, just without our own DNA. It also allows the benefits of adoption without all of the legal red tape and drawbacks associated with the typical adoption process at a significantly cheaper cost. Multiple embryos from the same family can be adopted so that our children would be biological siblings.
We need your help.
Would you pray for us? With either option, there will be a number of medical procedures Victoria will have to endure to bring us to the finish line. While we are excited to start this journey, there is the very real potential of losses during this process and so we ask for your prayers.
-Pray for us to continue to trust in God's Sovereignty throughout all the ups & downs of this journey, as there will be many.
-Pray for the Doctors & Nurses that will be involved in the process. That God would guide their hands in all of the medical procedures.
-Pray for Victoria's body, that there would be no complications from any of the medical procedures.
-Pray for Chris to support & care for Victoria throughout this journey..
-Pray that we would have joy throughout this journey.
-Pray that God would prepare us to be the best parents that we can be.
-Pray for us to have discernment in the decisions we will face & strength to endure any painful losses during the journey, should they occur.
- Pray for our future children, fearfully and wonderfully made by God for a purpose and time that only He knows.
-Pray that God would lead us to the embryos he wants us to care for should we choose the Snowflake adoption route.
Would you like to support us financially?
We trust God will provide financially and we are extremely grateful to our family and friends who have expressed a desire to support us in this way.
Either of these options will end up costing between $20,000-$30,000 including all of the medications and follow up visits associated, with the potential of those costs being higher if there are any complications. We would like to begin the process as soon as possible and your support can help us to begin sooner.
Should you prayerfully feel a desire to help support us, there are 3 ways you can do so:
1) Donate via GoFundme - GoFundme charges an online processing fee (1.9% +.30 USD per transaction). Your donations will be decreased by this amount.
2) Venmo us directly @christopher-deal-5, please mark as private and add a note mentioning Fertility.
3) You may also send a check payable to "Chris and Victoria Deal". In the memo line, please write "Fertility gift". Please mail to 5630 Caminito Roberto San Diego CA 92111.
Thank you for considering this request and please keep us in your prayers.
In Christ,
Chris and Victoria Deal
PS- We have created a private facebook group called “Chris and Victoria Deals IVF Journey ” where we plan to track our process and provide updates to anybody that wants to follow our journey.
Organizer
Christopher Deal
Organizer
San Diego, CA