Tina and Benjamin Gibson reside in the Eastern part Tennessee. They married each other in Tennessee only. They were relishing each moment of their companionship. After a while, the couple decided to have a baby.
“My husband has cystic fibrosis, so infertility is common,” Tina told CNN. Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that affects mainly the lungs. However, this disease won't act as a barrier to their purpose of having a baby.
However, the couple didn't allow Benjamin’s condition to take a toll on themselves, they had in fact planned out something different “We had decided that we were more than likely going to adopt, and we were fine with that.”
In the meantime, they helped other children. They decided to foster few children before landing on their final decision. The couple planned a week-long vacation. But Tina's conversation with her dad stopped them before they could embark on their vacation.
But the couple didn't seem to be too interested in what Tina's Dad told them. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s nice, Dad, but we’re not interested. We’re knee-deep in foster care right now,’ ” Tina recalled with a smirk, “I kind of blew it off. I had no interest in it.”
Tina pondered about the thing her dad told her, during their eight-hour long journey to their vacation destination. “It was playing in my mind over and over and over,” she said. Benjamin asked her “What are you thinking about?”, “The embryo adoption,” she replied. Later, Benjamin and Tina decided to research about it.
Tina immediately took out the laptop and typed "Embryo Adoption" on google. She started researching the topic. Tina kept on sharing the bullet points about the subject with Benjamin. She told him that the donation center was situated in Knoxville, Tennessee.
It didn't take her long to decide. , “During August of last year, I just came home one day; I looked at Benjamin, and I said, ‘I think we need to submit an application for embryo adoption’.” And they started the procedure.
After the initial procedure, Tina had to undergo a series of tests, just to examine her uterus, if it was suitable or not for the process. Tina had to expunge a small polyp and after that, it was time for a home study.
The home study is a similar procedure to the one which is followed when someone wants to adopt a child. The examiner scrutinizes the place just to ensure that it is a nice environment for a child to grow.
By March, the couple had passed all the tests which they went through and were now awaiting embryo implantation process to begin. In fact, it wasn’t at all facile as it looked like. There was one more step they had to go through and that was of selecting an embryo. The couple literally had to go through donor's profile, that had all the information on it, including genetic information. “We literally had two weeks to go through 300 profiles.”
Tina was confused. The list was so long, that she didn't know how to zero in on one donor. Everyone wants a healthy baby but they were considering other factors as well. So they decided to make their choice by focusing on one factor, i.e., their stature.
At first, they shortlisted those profiles which were similar to their body structures. Then they moved onto other important factors. “Then we started looking at some of the bigger things, like medical history. Long story short, we picked our profile.”
The first choice they made didn't seem feasible to them. Therefore, they decided to opt for the second shortlisted profile. They were not aware of the fact, that Tina's pregnancy was going to break a world record. It was also going to take the internet by storm.
Tina said to the doctor, “I didn’t sign up for this”, jokingly. As per the medical books, there is about 75% survival rate when the frozen embryos are melted, but this case was a tad different. In this case, all the three embryos survived, taking all the doctors by surprise. The implantation process was all but over. Now it was all about the couple to have patience
Eventually, one embryo was successfully implanted. It was really miraculous for Tina and Benjamin. Tina gave birth to a cute and a healthy baby girl. When interviewed, Tina said, “So it all just fell into place. It’s our new normal; it’s crazy to think about it.”
You people must be wondering that how Tina got an embryo just a year younger than her. Advancement in IVF technology had made this possible. The success rates with IVF are higher, which results in the creation of fewer embryos. Nowadays, people donate the leftover embryos.
Whenever did someone ask that if she is interested in having more children? Tina says she was absolutely interested in giving Emma a sibling with the remaining embryos. She also emphasized the idea of adoption. “We wanted to adopt, and I don’t know that isn’t going to be in our future. We may still adopt. This just ended up being the route that we took. I think that we would have been equally elated if were able to adopt. “