Round Three.
Well, my friends, here we are again.
This post is a little harder to write than the last two, so I apologize for the delay, and also if it comes off as a little rambly. Sometimes I’m not sure of how to phrase it, so I just keep typing and hope it works itself out. Sorry in advance.
As you can see from the post below, when last we talked, we were in the process of raising the funds for our second transfer. For the first, we implanted two embryos and ended up with Essie (1 ½ now. Getting spunkier with each passing moment.) So, we planned to do the second transfer, with two more embryos, and hopefully end up with twins.
However, for the second transfer, the two embryos implanted, but shortly thereafter, Jill had a miscarriage and we lost both of the babies.
Obviously, we are heartbroken over the loss of two of our babies, but also we had/ have some considerable confusion going on. I was fairly certain that, since God had moved so clearly getting all the funds in, and even providing a vehicle that was large enough for our family to get to the clinic, that we would be able to sit here and share a new little life with you guys, and talk about how you helped bring him/her/them to life.
And yet, here we are. I’m a little confused as to what God is up to, and I feel almost like I owe an apology or something to all of you that helped us out. I know that the stats say that basically each transfer is about a 50/50 shot, so you know we might not get all those babies home. But, it just seemed like everything was coming together so miraculously with this transfer, I thought God was doing something great. But now I’m a little bit at a loss. But it still feels like we let people down somehow.
So, we had to spend some time coming to terms with the miscarriage, and also with how it all went down. But, in the end, we just trust that God has a plan, and our job is simply to do the best we can where we are with what we know. What happens after that is in His hands, not ours.
And so we come to this point. We are moving forward with the next transfer, (numbers 5 and 6 out of 8) and medically we can being immediately. Unfortunately, we are still in need of the funds for the next transfer, which is around $10,000. So, off we go on down that road again. As always, our goal is not just to have enough money to do the transfer, but to invite other people to join this journey with us. We believe that God intends the Body to work together, and if you guys can be the financial part, we’ll do the raising and changing and the puking parts.
We are excited that we found a new site to do the fundraising through, (click here) which allows donors to get tax credit for giving to the adoption. I wish we had known about it earlier, but there it is. So, if you’re a business and you’re looking for a good 20k tax write-off, let’s chat. If not, at least it’s a little help to those of you that help us.
So off we go again, my friends. Once more into the waiting game. We ask that you prayerfully consider joining us again, and we’re thankful for your prayer support in either case.
Thanks all. Hopefully we have something exciting to tell you soon 🙂
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Newspaper Update
Well, looks like I should update this quick since Jill and i just got interviewed for our local paper, and some people are coming to check this site out.
Pretty much all the info below is correct, except that most of the funds have been raised, and we now have a sweet 1998 15-passenger van with just under 200,000 miles on it. So things are looking up. We’re excited to complete our next transfer coming up here, and sharing the story with you all of the next life. (to be serious for a second, the odds generally say 50-50 on if the embryos will take hold, so we’d appreciate any prayers you can muster for the transfer process. )
We will update this page again as soon as we know. Thanks for joining with us, all.
ROUND 2
So, if you want the details on round 1 of our adoption, scroll down to the bottom of this page. I’m going to leave it up for the rather complex reason that I’m an historian and I have near-barf reactions to anything being thrown away. On to Round 2.
If you read part 1, you will see that Jill and I have been pursuing embryo adoption for some time now. There are no words in English, Elvish or Entish to express our gratitude for those that have joined with us to help with the financial needs of adoption. The picture off to the right is possible because of the generosity of people who gave 10, 100, or in some cases even 1000 dollars to help us bring Esther Faith home. You can see from the picture she is an absolute joy to have around (unless it’s time to eat – then she’s a little more aggressive.)
For the quick sumup – we adopted Esther (and her brother/sisters) as embryos about a year and a half ago. For the full story on embryo adoption, check out “Round 1” at the bottom of this page. We are now working getting back to california for the second round of embryo transfers, to give esther’s siblings a chance at life too. We hope to have another smiling face like this to share with you a year from now.
So, as mentioned below, we have 6 more embryos just waiting for a chance at life, but financially we need a miracle for the costs of the transfer, so we are asking for your help. Right now, we have 3 major needs
1 – The cost of the procedure, which is around $7,000 with all the ultrasounds, and actual transfer, and meds and what not .
2 – About $3000 for travel, hotels, etc to get to california (where the clinic that stores the embryos is) for the transfer.
3 – Some sort of vehicle that will fit our family, either to rent for the trip for the transfer, or to purchase. Right now we have a minivan that seats 7, but unfortunately, our family is now at a solid 8, with more to come. So, we’re looking for a 12-15 passenger van, or perhaps a small bus or people mover. We aren’t real particular, as long as it has seatbelts. So, if you have or know of someone selling a vehicle like that (or better yet, is getting annoyed at one sitting in their driveway and we can help take it off their hands), let us know by Email (kevin@crazycrawfordfamily.com) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/crazycrawfordfamily)
Alright. Thank guys. Of course, you could also support us through EveryDay Devotions below, or FunkDaddyRadio.com. We appreciate all that you guys do, and we look forward to partnering with you as we move forward to see how many of Esther’s family we get to bring home 🙂
EVERYDAY DEVOTIONS
This is a daily (sorta) devotion site that we work with. If you are the kind of person that likes to start (or end) your day with an application of God’s word, then we invite you to join in support for this. 100% of the donations from this site will go to supporting our family needs (the medications, ultrasounds, travel, procedure, etc). The link below will allow you to setup a recurring monthly donation of 5, 10, etc dollars. If you stop receiving the devotions, feel free to cancel the donations. We hope that if people like to see some effort on our part before joining in, this is one way to do it, and hopefully you will blessed yourself by a little extra time in God’s word.
So there you have it. Though our costs are high, we believe that there are people who believe in life as much as we do. We will do our best to honor whatever help you can give, and together I think we can bring home the rest of these babies.
Thank you so much for whatever you can do, and we look forward to sharing the lives of these children with you.
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ROUND 1
Ok, here’s the deal.
Short Version: We are in process of adopting 8 babies from Cameroon, and we need to raise some funds to complete the process.
Long Version: We are Pro-Life, unashamedly. But then the question comes up: what does that mean? When does life begin? When does life end? What exactly is this thing we call “life”? Like many pro-life people, we have come to the conclusion that life begins at the moment of conception. From that moment on, a new life, a new soul, a new everything is created.
Here’s the wrinkle: with modern technology, in vitro fertilization is an option for many people struggling to have kids. If you are unfamiliar with the process, the mommy and daddy parts of the children are combined outside of the woman (creating an embryo), and then medically transferred to a uterus to grow (hopefully as a normally-conceived child would.) However, when Doctors do this procedure, they create more than one embryo. Sometimes several more. These extras are cyrogenically frozen and saved to help future conception.
However, sometimes the parents that created the embryos do not want them transferred. Sometimes the family just wanted one child, sometimes there’s health risks, sometimes the families split up, or a host of other reasons. The end result is that now there are over 600,000 embryos in frozen storage in the US.
Are they people? Are they children? For us, we believe yes. If life begins at conception, then these are children just the same as any child that is 2 months in the womb, 9 months, or 3 months old outside the womb. The way I (Kevin) see it, that’s the only logical conclusion if you believe that life begins at that moment of conception.
So, there are legal possibilities to adopt these embryos, which we have complete. We have now adopted 8 embryos from a Cameroonian couple (living in the US). So, we are at the last step in the process, which is to travel to the clinic and for the embryos to be transferred to Jill. Then we’ll hopefully be giving birth to our adopted kids in roughly 9 months, if i remember my biology correctly.
This is where we need your help. The cost of the procedure is over $5000 dollars (and some other expenses, such as ultrasounds and a little medication you have to take first that insurance typically doesn’t cover.) So, we are asking for your help.
We had a comment once that we ask others for financial help too much. (Missions, adoption…) Here’s my take on it. We believe that God made us a Body of Believers, some are the head, some are the hands, some are the heart, etc. We believe that we have been called to follow God in sometimes somewhat unorthodox ways. I understand that embryo adoption is a newer idea (some people, pro-life people even, do not consider them “real” children). I understand that it’s somewhat out of the ordinary.
That said, I believe that God calls some people to do the weird things, just as He might be calling you to help. You may not feel like you want to raise an adopted child (or possibly 8, if they all survive the IV process). You may feel like you are too old to raise babies, or that your family is the way it should be. That’s great. However, maybe you have the ability to give financially.
If you want to support the pro-life ideal, but maybe just don’t feel called to raise the children yourself, that’s what we want to do. We will do the parenting, we will do late-night feedings, the poopy diapers, the cleaning up barf, the teenage craziness, the discipline, and all the rest. We are asking you to help us get it started.
I think together we can accomplish God’s will- the saving of many lives.
Will you consider helping us? $10, $100, $1000. Anything and everything helps.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this, and thank you for partnering with us if you so choose. We will do our best to honor your sacrifice and raise the children as best we can. We may even send you a Christmas card or two.
thanks again
The Crawfords