Minnesota Newbie with Questions

olson2903

Hi everyone! 

I just started exploring this page, and have brushed up on the FAQ's posted. I am going to apologize in advance if I ask any questions that have been asked before. My husband and I found out very early on that I had infertility issues. In May, we found out he too had infertility issues, and just last week he saw a urologist specializing in fertility that said there was nothing causing his 0 morphology. Long story short we are now deciding between IVF & Adoption. Anyone that struggled with infertility, did any of you decide pursing adoption before IVF?

We are leaning towards domestic infant adoption. We want a baby in our home, and the thought of spending $16,000 on IVF and it possibly not working is hard for us to grasp. I'm not sure if I have quite "grieved" the entire infertility ordeal completely. The thought of adopting doesn't bother us one bit, but the idea of not trying (IVF) is still some what haunting me. 

On to the adoption... MN has the 10 day waiting period after consent. I have read on here to look into out of state such as FL because of the shorter time after birth. If you are from MN, what route did you take? Any specific agencies to look into in MN? OR any out of state agencies recommended?

We wouldn't start the process till next spring or summer. We want time to save, as the infertility costs thus far have caused some impact.

I really appreciate any feedback you may have!

Thanks  

kushie77

Hello. I'm not in MN, but we also are dealing with male factor IF. Our options were IVF with donor sperm. Neither H nor I were comfortable with that, so we stopper IF treatment and are catching our breath before starting a DIA. We are also researching embryo adoption, but are still unsure. Everyone here is very nice and super helpful. Good luck on your journey.

Dr.Loretta

Hi and welcome. This board is a great source of support and resources.

On to your questions!

We pursued adoption instead of IUI or IVF. There were many factors involved in this decision. One driving factor was that I had 3 losses, and IUI/IVF wasn't going to fix that. I wanted to be a mom, and realized I didn't need a baby to come out of me for that to happen. If you are still struggling with IF and your options, I would encourage you to 1) read the upfront section of Adopting After Infertility (the adoption section is terribly out of date, but the upfront parts about dealing with IF and deciding on a path forward are still applicable IMO) and/or 2) see a therapist about your grief and work through it.

As for who to use and revocation periods, I have an issue with cherry picking a state just because of wait times. We worked with an agency that operates in 7 states (and actually does placements nationally), and revocation periods were anywhere from 72 hours to 30 days. We ended up adopting from a 30-day state, and it wasn't an issue. While I understand not wanting an adoption to fall through during a longer wait, I also think it's somewhat disingenuous to choose an agency/state just for that reason.

We aren't in MN, but you can PM me if you want info on our agency. You can also check sites like the yahoo group AARD for feedback on specific agencies, or you can contact some in your area and see if they have information sessions. Often who you use ends up being who you click with.

GL and post often!

fledgegrl1

Hi, and welcome! We decided to pursue DIA instead of IVF. We knew that it we tried IVF and it didn't work, it would be a very long wait before we could afford to pursue adoption. We wanted to have a family, and had already been through a few years of trying/infertility so the idea of waiting years more just made the decision for us.  I'm not in MN, so no advice there, sorry. We did independent advertising (we didn't work with an agency) and we weren't state specific in our advertising, but we just happened to match with a BM who lived in FL. I honestly struggle a bit with the idea of no-revocation. On one hand, it seems only ethical that a BM would have some (limited) time to reconsider her decision, but on the other (selfish) hand, I was/am so grateful that we didn't have the torture of waiting through a revocation period.  My heart goes out to folks in states that have long, 30-day waits.

Best of luck in your journey, whatever route you choose.

aligross

Welcome fellow Minnesotan!!! Hoping you aren't melting in this heat and humidity! 

We also are walking the path of male infertility. We chose to adopt vs. IVF for a couple reasons but the main one is simply.... We want to be parents not pregnant. There are days, typically when the wait is getting to us, that we wonder if we "SHOULD" have tried IVF first, but it wasn't worth the risk or money to us. If you want to ask me any other questions about this, please feel free to PM me.

We aren't afraid of the 10 day waiting period. We actually are hoping to have a close open relationship with our future birth mom and in doing so we think we want her to be within the state somewhere. We are fine with wherever the birth mom is from, and the wait period will drive me crazy no matter where we are!

We chose Bethany Christian Services as our agency. It is a national company that first tries to place you within their office, but has no problem sending out to other agencies. They have a website that has all parent's profiles on them and will have BMs come to them from other states because of certain parents etc. We have friends who are going through New Life Adoption agency. Their home study process is a longer, drawn out situation than our's is. I think it all depends on what YOU want and where you feel comfortable. 

Again, welcome! Stay cool! 

bumpuser794640

We also have male factor IF and chose adoption to build our family over IVF, for the same reasons other posters have shared above. I'd ditto Dr. L'a recommended book, it is very helpful in figuring out if you have grieved and processed enough to move on to adoption, which contains it's own difficulties.

Flamingo86

Hi! We are also deciding whether to pursue adoption vs. fertility treatments. Our situation is a little different than yours (I can get pregnant, just can't stay pregnant) but I hear ya on making a tough decision. We have been talking to a therapist about it and that has been immensely helpful as we work through our emotions.

Mush-Tastic

While I can't speak about IVF stuff, I can tell you that we had a wonderful experience with our agency New Life Family Services when we adopted our son, Evan, earlier this year. We chose them because they have a much smaller waiting pool of families, they have dual-representation where the adoptive family and birth parents each have their own social worker representing them, and they are willing to work with other agencies as well. Yes, as a PP mentioned, the home study is more extensive than most places (our's took 3 months of 6 different sessions), but I cannot say enough positive things about our experience with them (and we had some tricky stuff come up with our placement). Our SW was AMAZING and so was our BM's and BF's. We are very VERY close with the entire staff at New Life and felt 100% supported the entire time.

For what it's worth, we waited less than 3 months from the time we were home study approved to the day we brought our son home.

I was not worried about the 10-day revocation period simply because we have a very open relationship with his BPs and we knew, through multiple extensive conversations that they were very set in their decision to place.

We have a fully open adoption with both of his birth parents and New Life is wonderful about providing counseling to them before, during and after regarding any issues that may arise, and for us too

I wish you the best in your journey. It's not a decision that should be taken lightly and you're on the right track by asking a lot of questions here! Let me know if you want anymore info. I'd be happy to share.

MayDayGirl

We have a very similar story, we were living in mn and needed Ivf to get pregnant. We chose to adopt instead and actually went through fl lol.

Unfortunately Our adoption process didn't end happily and we went back to Ivf and decided to do the shared risk plan so we could get money back if all our tries didn't work.

Ivf did work and we got pregnant. If you can see my siggy we also adopted twice and did Ivf/got pg twice (just had our baby last week). our domestic adoption was through Illinois because we lived there at the time and it had a 72 hour Waiting period.

We did Ivf at both center for reproductive medicine and Rmia and got pregnant at both places and were very happy at both.

Let me know if you have any questions!

horseyk2001

HI there!  welcome!  I am from mn too and pursuing domestic infant adoption.  We had gone through the struggle of infertility as well and decided against ivf since we didn't want to spend the money and possibly still have no baby.  We decided if we were meant to get pregnant we would and in the meantime we would pursue adoption.  We are going through Christian family life services in fargo ND, they service MN and ND and you can possibly get a baby from either state and the rules in both states are different.  Pm if you want more info!  We love our agency and are very happy with them.  Also you don't have to pay all the money up front, just as the adoption progesses you pay.  So if you're waiting and don't want to wait as long, this is a nice option.  Good luck on your journey!

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