Little Snowflakes

Yesterday, my dear friend Laura gave birth to two of the most beautiful little snowflakes. Her sons Carter and Connor, are sweet and soft and smell like baby powder and all the good things that babies smell like. They coo and cuddle, and nuzzle. They bury their little noses in your shoulder and tuck their tiny feet and hands underneath their bodies. They are absolutely precious and with her permission, I am sharing their story and photos above. As you will see, Uncle AB and Auntie CB made a visit both days and got lots of good pics (some borrowed courtesy of Eric and Laura). We make an appearance toward the end of the show.

In this unique world of adoption I sometimes get so focused on our process that I forget how many different ways there are to adopt. When Laura and I met, she had a five month old daughter (who I have often bragged about on here, and who shares my own Keira's name). As time went by, and we started our Chinese adoption - Laura and Eric made mention that they too were looking into adoption for their second child. After lots of research Laura found Snowflake Adoption.

Unlike any other form of adoption I had heard of, Snowflake is the adoption of fertilized embryos. Along the lines of life beginning at conception, many couples after going through in-vitro fertilization have several fertilized embryos remaining. Typically they are frozen and in many cases never implanted. Snowflake Adoption is unique because it allows families with remaining frozen embryos to adopt out those little "snowflakes" to families wiling to give life to those children. You are still required to do a mound of paperwork, and a homestudy, and are matched accordingly with a family. Both families in this process must approve of the other and there are both open and closed adoptions.

In this case, Laura adopted several embryos from a family and successfully implanted on her first try. The boys stayed strong and above you have the amazing story of a family whose lives have been changed by the beauty of adoption in one of its most unique forms.

Mother and babies are healthy and happy - the boys were over six pounds each and Laura carried to 37 and a 1/2 weeks (you go girl!). I just stand in awe of the miracle of these little boys...Laura is in many ways both their bio mom and their birth mom. It's her blood that helped develop their little bodies, and certainly she carried them for nine months. And yet, they also have genetic parents who entrusted them to Laura and Eric to raise and to love.

What a miracle and what an amazing blessing!

Hugs,
cb