Today marks a big milestone for Amos and Irene's genetic culture. Today is their baek-il! Which is their 100 day celebration (well actually 103 days at the time of getting this published, everything takes longer with babies). In the past it wasn't uncommon for children to die in Korea before 100 days of age. The first party a child would have been given was to celebrate that they had made it through their first 100 days in good health. If you are interested in this tradition more can be read on it here.
On a personal level, we cannot believe how fast these 100 days have flown by. Both babies are right on track developmentally - holding heads up, big smiles, longer stretches of sleep at night. In the ever so trusty method of "hold your baby step on the scale, then put baby down and step on the scale again" Amos weighs 13lbs (7lbs over birth weight) and Irene is 9lbs (5lbs over birth weight)! More scientific measurements to come later. We are also now on the regular "well baby" check-up schedule of only seeing a Dr. once every 2 months!!! This is a huge milestone and the longest break we have had from doctors since April 2014.
Amos and Irene are pretty happy to be alive too!
We also wanted to share the answer to a question we have been asked many times. What is the cost of doing an embryo adoption versus a traditional adoption? Well the answer is somewhere in the middle - it isn't as cheap as an in state adoption from foster care but it isn't as expensive as an international adoption. Our personal expenses were roughly $11,000 which covered the medical testing, medications, travel, and clinic fees. It does not cover the cost of the embryos themselves - these ARE NOT for sale. The family that originally created them pays for them to be stored and are in no way reimbursed for this expense. Unlike traditional adoptions, there is no tax credit or assistance for this process. We were blessed to have the initial expenses fully covered by the day we did our embryo transfer into Odessa's body.
But, hey, then we were pregnant! Thus the usual medical costs of pregnancy started rolling in. Luckily Jeff is blessed with a job that provides great health insurance. Just to give a little perspective on our "cost" of a twin pregnancy and delivery here is what we know:
- All OB appointments and labs were paid in full (if they can keep mom healthy then hopefully it will be easier to deliver healthy babies, so they want to make prenatal care easy).
- Specialist ultrasounds are expensive (about $1,200 each - we had 5) and luckily those were covered too.
- For a cesarean birth, plus 1 healthy baby, plus a 1 baby/12 day stay in the NCIU the hospital will bill your insurance for $75,879.27 of which we paid $815.30.
Many thanks for continuing to follow our embryo adoption adventure. We are mostly recovered to normal life - feel free to contact us if you want to meet our little ones. Most likely it has been awhile and we want to see you too.