We have been married for 14-years and on our fertility journey for over ten. During those years we have undergone numerous test with fertility clinics and experienced eleven miscarriages. But our desire to become parents has not diminished. God has continued to provide us with love from our community, grace to support one another, and a desire to keep pursuing the family He has for us.
With our latest results, our hearts have turned to adoption and we would love to have your support on this new journey. We will be pursuing a unique form of adoption called snowflake adoption. A snowflake is a frozen embryo, which another couple fertilized through IVF in the hope of using for their own pregnancy. When these couples are done growing their family, they may have embryos left over which they can then choose to dump, continue to freeze, or donate. The embryo we will adopt has been frozen and waiting for us. What makes this style of adoption even more special is that Sarah will get the opportunity to carry our baby through pregnancy and delivery.
We will add one note about the science. If for whatever reason your beliefs about IVF do not align with our choice to adopt this way, that is fine. We believe that, whether naturally in the womb or through science in the laboratory, it is always God who sparks life. This is not a space to argue your points for or against embryo adoption. But if you want to learn more about the process and why so many families are choosing to pursue it you can explore the research at NightLight Adoptions.
We could not be more excited for this new season and want to start the process as soon as possible with your help. We are hoping to raise $20,000 to see this adoption come to fruition. That amount includes our application fees, home study, transportation of our embryo, legal fees, and IVF treatments. We would love your prayers most of all in this season. Many of you have walked with us through seasons of grief and loss for the last ten years and we are so grateful for your love and grace as we have grown. Pray that God's joy will multiply in this season and that our child can be a light in this world.
All our love, Sarah & Jeremy
As you probably know, after we submitted our application we were given an extensive checklist to complete along with our education requirements. These needed to be completed before we could schedule our home study. As of May 29th, 2023 our lists are completed (including health checks, CPR/First Aid certification, FBI + background checks, dog vaccines, home info, family portfolio, and more) and we submitted our education requirements for review!!!!!
We are excited and nervous, because everything going forward is completely out of our hands - the home study, matching, and outcomes of the implantation. We are fully trusting God for what comes next and asking for your prayers as we lean further into Him in these next few months.
Sarah has a consult about her back on June 8th, 2023 and we will know when we can schedule surgery for her herniated disc at that point. We'll keep you posted on those details as well.
As for now we are focusing on fundraising the remainder of our need to bring our babies home! Thank you for your continued love, prayers, and support in this season.
Shalom,
Sarah & Jeremy
Hey all,
As we head into May, Jeremy and I are focused on tackling our individual education pieces for our home study. We each have to read, watch, and summarize a munch of articles and videos and are dedicating ourselves to completing these by the end of May so we can get our case manager's home visit scheduled.
We also got some news about Sarah's back that we wanted to keep you posted about. She has a herniated disc in her back that is going to need outpatient surgery, which we are hoping to get done in July. This is necessary to get done, rather than just managing her pain, because pregnancy could cause complications with the disc. So, your prayers for that surgery and recovery are coveted right now.
As of today, though, we have raised $8900, which is just shy of our second milestone!!!!!!! We could not be more excited and grateful for your help in getting this far in the process. Thank you for your prayers, love, good vibes, and support. We love you all.
-Sarah & Jeremy
You won't believe it but we are ahead of schedule. Based on donations through AdoptTogether and those who are sending gifts to us directly, we have received enough to cover our Matching Phase!
We can't get too far ahead of ourselves, though. We are very much still physically in the Home Study phase until we complete all of our paperwork, which is still going to take a little while. This weekend Jeremy and I finished our required CPR/First Aid course here in Escondido - she even gave us official laminated cards - so we are working swiftly through our checklist. We are hopeful that we can tackle almost everything by mid- to late-April, though. So keep praying.
All our love,
Sarah & Jeremy
We can't believe its only been a few weeks since launching our fundraising page but we've already raised enough to start our Home Study. We've been working with NightLight to get paperwork completed to begin that process and submit our fee of $1000. We will have a second fee a little later of about $500 + travel expenses, but for now we are caught up.
We met with your new fertility clinic on 3/14 for an initial consultation and medical review. They want to run a few tests with Sarah, because of the number of miscarriages we've experience which will be an added cost to our budget, but we know that their goal is to make sure we have a healthy pregnancy and delivery.
We have been working on our Family Portfolio this week as well so that NightLight will have something to show families who could potentially match with us. We put together photos, a history of our story and fertility journey. Then we had to do a write up about ourselves including our hobbies and interests and family backgrounds and finish with a letter to the potential family. Sarah's been working overtime to get that designed and typed up with pictures to be able to have our NightLight Coordinator proof.
This process feels so fast and slow at the same time as we wait for next steps, but we are so grateful for your prayers that have helped to carry us through each form and appointment.
Shalom,
Sarah & Jeremy
We met with Paige for our one-on-one orientation February 24th so we could officially begin our adoption journey. She was kind and encouraging about our process and timeline and sent us a bunch of resources to get reading and researching.
She also sent us our application to complete. We were able to get that submitted, Thursday, March 2nd along with our $500 application fee.
The next step will be getting prepared for our home study and connecting with the fertility clinic who will be completing our implantation in Laguna Beach. Our first consultation with them will be on March 14th.
Our most urgent need is for our Home Study - now that we've submitted our application we have our Home Study fee of $1500 due in just two weeks.
Your prayers that we might meet this goal quickly would be greatly appreciated along with intercession for our stress as we tackle each new item on our checklist - expected and unexpected.
Shalom,
S&J Brummel
