I noticed a story came into my Facebook feed published from the Sea Turtle Conservatory, the very organization from which I helped to release Esperanza from the depths of her nest. I don’t often click on stories as time is short, and priorities a plenty, but for some reason that day I did. Pictured were a mass of sea turtles being released into the sea, with the words “153 hatchlings safely on their way…” I couldn’t help but feel a jolt of hope flow through my veins; I wondered what God had in store for me; what miracle He was bringing to life. Every time He revealed those numbers in my life, He was orchestrating the impossible.

Few people know of our journey with infertility; even fewer know our path to growing our family. It’s odd; something about infertility is cloaked in silence, almost as if it’s shameful to talk about, and at the very least uncomfortable. People all over the world easily have children, many highly cherished, others unwanted; yet there are families aching for children, and their pain is hidden behind masks of fortitude. We explored adoption, both through the foster care system, domestic and international. I had served on a missions trip with my church traveling to an orphanage in Guatemala and my heartached for the children abandoned in the gullies; for the precious babies living in orphanages. Surely, our family had much to offer a child in need yet each time we attempted to pull the door open to traditional adoption, we found it locked shut.

What was not locked was a window that gave us a glimpse onto another path; that of cyropreserved embryos that were created for their families during the process of IVF. Each family has the choice to continue to store their embryos, destroy their embryos, give them to research, or donate their embryos to a family who will give the embryo an opportunity to develop into what God created them to be, a beloved child. Adopting a child at his/her very earliest stage of development; was this the path God was asking us to travel? Was this the miracle God was preparing our hearts to receive?

Facebook has an uncanny way of putting in front of you what is on your heart. Just above the story on the 153 hatchlings was a birth announcement from a family who was sharing the birth of their daughter, who had been in a frozen state for 7 years prior to their adoption of her. God had my attention…