Melissa & Shelly’s Story
The Challenge
After meeting at ages 36 and 38, Melissa and Shelly both wanted to start a family. The journey to make babies when one has reached advanced maternal age (“AMA”) can be challenging. Offering an additional challenge is that Melissa and Shelly are a same-sex couple, an element which general points towards third-party reproduction.
When looking at their options for childbearing logistics, they considered multiple scenarios, including having one of them provide an egg and the other carry the baby. There were multiple factors to account for when trying to create a beautiful new life that couldn’t happen naturally on its own.
Our Solution
Ultimately, genetic representation for one member of the couple was chosen from a sperm bank. Their first child was born after a rollercoaster three-year fertility journey, consisting of multiple intrauterine inseminations (“IUI”) and three in-vitro fertilization (“IVF”) attempts. Remarkably (at over 40) they had healthy enough eggs to produce one perfect little guy named Brooks. By the time they decided to try for baby number two, the option to use their own eggs was gone due to both Melissa’s and Shelly’s ages. Although they were already so grateful for Brooks, they really wanted to raise him with a sibling. So, they took a leap of faith and put a request out on an embryo donation site. They knew it was a long shot, but connected with a lovely couple that had extra embryos and wanted to donate them to their family.
The Results — A Dream Come True
Two and a half years after Brooks was born, a precious little girl named Estelle came into their world. The fact that Estelle's genetics were not common to anyone else in the family wasn’t even a thought — the two mothers were over the moon in love with now two children. It was and is an absolute dream come true.
Against the odds, they created a family in a nontraditional way — a path becoming more common as laws catch up with the times. Embaby Fertility Law, PLLC, helped make it possible.
“Katharine played a kind, supportive role in our journey to motherhood. None of this could have happened without her legal help. Creating our family was most certainly a challenging but happy journey, and we are so grateful to have Katharine be a part of it.”
— Melissa and Shelly, Former Clients