The Biggest Moore Family Update


 The Moore family has some truly enormous news, but it's not quite as simple as just telling you the news...it requires a little bit of explanation first. Some of our family history will be old news for some of you, but I'm going to include it anyway just so we make sure to explain the whole story.

We first discussed adoption while we were still just dating, and what we'd envisioned was having two biological children and then adopting a third. When we got pregnant the first month we tried (about nine months after we got married), we figured we wouldn't have any trouble at all with our plan. But we miscarried that baby, who we named Sam, at 12 weeks and struggled to get pregnant for another six months after that. At the time, those six months were agonizing and painful as we longed to start our family. But the Lord bless us with our incredible daughter, Charlotte, who was born in October of 2014.




When we started trying for a second child the summer before Charlotte's first birthday, we figured it would take a few months to get pregnant. But time passed and before we knew it, a whole year had gone by with no pregnancies. Even though we had been trying for so much longer, we both felt oddly at peace with God's timing. We knew that He would answer our prayers for a second child with a plan we hadn't been made aware of yet. 

We were about to file paperwork to begin the adoption process with the state of Virginia in the fall of 2016 when JT was offered a temporary job in New Mexico. Excited about the opportunity for our family to experience a new place for the short time, we accepted the job but planned to revisit the adoption paperwork when we returned to Virginia.

About a month later, we were approached about a permanent job for JT in the Phoenix area that would start as soon as we were done with the temporary job in New Mexico. We also accepted this job, and it made for a somewhat tumultuous calendar year as we first waited for the human resources department to get all the necessary paperwork together to move us and half of our belongings to New Mexico, and then spent about nine months in New Mexico, then went back to Virginia to pack up the rest of our belongings and put our house on the market, and then move to Arizona permanently. It's been a lot, and when we accepted the jobs way back in the summer of 2016 we knew it would be a lot. So we decided that we'd keep trying to get pregnant, but would put all talks of adoption on hold for the short term. We wouldn't be in New Mexico long enough to go through the process anyway, so we knew there wouldn't be much point.



But in March, after we'd only been in New Mexico for a few months, most of my family came to visit us. The topic of in vitro fertilization came up over lunch one day, and my sister mentioned frozen embryo adoption. Conversation moved on to something else, but JT texted me while we still sat around the table with my family and said "we should research that."

So we did. We quickly realized that this was something we not only felt strongly about, but something we wanted to pursue as a family. JT and I both felt immediate conviction and pushing from the Holy Spirit that this was the Lord's perfect plan for us. Within a week of having that conversation with my family around the lunch table, we had submitted our formal application to adopt through Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Agency. 

Embryo adoption is far from traditional. In fact, most people have never even heard of it (ourselves included). So to give a basic definition and description of what embryo adoption even is, I will borrow the words from our adoption agency, Snowflake Embryo Adoption Agency:


"When couples use in vitro fertilization to achieve pregnancy, they will often have embryos remaining after they complete their family. One option available to them is to donate those embryos to another couple. Embryo adoption allows the family with remaining embryos to select a recipient family for their embryo gift. The adopting family is able to use the donated embryos to achieve a pregnancy and give birth to their adopted child." 

This is an absolutely incredible thing for everyone involved. In our adoption agency, the donor parents are able to choose the family that adopts their embryos, and both families work together to decide how open or closed that adoption is moving forward. Adopting families who have been unable to get pregnant or even in some cases who are physically and medically unable to get pregnant are able to not only adopt a child, but carry that child for an entire pregnancy. And then give birth to their adopted child. It makes me emotional every time I think of that special and unique opportunity. 

It has now been two and a half years since we started trying for a second child, and we both feel complete peace that this was God's plan all along. Having always had a heart and desire for adoption, we are so excited to be able to pursue this somewhat nontraditional type that still honors the life of the child and the families involved in such a special way.

I need to pause for a moment to explain something, just in case any of you are wondering the same thing. A few days after we started researching, JT asked me "why do they call them snowflakes, anyway?" and I said "because they're frozen, and each one is unique." His face in that moment and the way his eyes welled up with tears, is one of my favorite memories of my husband. These beautiful frozen babies are frozen, friends, and they are babies. They are fertilized embryos, completely ready for life but stuck in limbo, frozen indefinitely in storage. Why don't more of us know about this? Why don't more couples struggling with infertility and wondering what options they have know that this is an option? Why did I only just hear about this nine months ago? There are so many babies waiting in storage. If we believe in life at conception, then this matters. This is an issue that matters so much.

But back to our story.

When we started all the paperwork, doctor's appointments, background checks, references and interviews for this adoption, we believed we were going to be in New Mexico for an entire additional year. We felt comfortable moving forward because we had enough time to complete all the preliminary stuff, get approved, get matched with a donor family, and even go through the fertility treatments and frozen embryo transfer while we were still in our temporary home of New Mexico. We envisioned moving to Arizona pregnant. We even began working with the fertility clinic that would do the transfer for us, and got all the preliminary blood work done. 


(Charlotte did not actually get blood work done. It's just that she is a toddler and can't be left out of anything.)

But the Lord had very different plans for us, because it was about two and a half months later that we found out that we would be moving to Arizona as soon as possible. Everything got put on hold while we waded through human resources and moving companies and travel once again, and we finished all of our required work on the adoption after we moved into our new house. We found a new fertility clinic that's closer to our new home and started over with them. But now all the classes, all the paperwork (well, the pre-medical paperwork, anyway), all the interviews, all the required reading and webinars, all the home visits and everything else has been completed and we're able to move forward. 
 

 
It's been a little bit of a longer process getting to this point than we anticipated when we began, but we really do believe that it's all the Lord's plan for our family. Through all the tumultuous seasons, the uncertainties with work and home, the miscarriage and the infertility, and the general instability that we have experienced, He has been at the center of it. We have strayed and we have doubted and we have questioned, but we've always come back and He has always been right there waiting for us, reminding us that He's had it under control all along. 

No matter what happens moving forward, He has it all under control. 

We are so excited about this, friends. We have been dying keeping it under wraps for the last nine months (okay, I have been dying keeping it under wraps for the last nine months), and we're so glad to get it all out in in the open now. I can't wait to talk to you about it, and I can't wait to share the rest of this journey with you all.

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