Tuesday, March 31, 2009

News Story

Our news story aired last night! The reporter emailed us in the day time while we were on the road home from California. My sweet brother came over to our house to turn on our recorder so that we could see it and I could post it here.







(direct link)

Overall, I was pleased with the story. I thought it portrayed Embryo Adoption in a positive light and I appreciated that it was more than a 30 second sound byte.

I had a few crtiques/corrections.

1) I hate that the camera adds 10 pounds.

2) I was discouraged that though I know they talked to Dr. Pomeroy (our Embryologist from our last cycle), they didn't show anything expert or relevant to his position as an Embryologist, and in fact, any person off the street could have said what he said. And what he said wasn't even that great-families choose Embryo Adoption for lots of reasons. Boiling it down to "desperation for a child" is such a narrow, insufficient description and I felt like it was said in a negative fashion.

3) Contrary to what the reporter said, we DO know what will happen to our embryos if we end up with a full house and still have embryos left. We actually even answered a question about what would happen so I'm not sure why she said what she did. We have already committed to returning them to the Genetic Parents in a situation like that. All Nightlight families make the same commitment.

4) The Anchor woman's synopsis about Embryo Adoption requiring a homestudy was correct. However, Embryo Adoption is not the only method for receiving donor embryos. Couples can go through clinic programs too (call Donor Embryo Programs), that are often anonymous and less invasive in to the Adoptive Family's background. I obviously prefer adoption over donor programs but realize that not every family (either Placing or Adopting) will choose it and yet their embryos need homes and a chance at life too, so I think it's also important for people to know that donor programs exist, if the adoption arrangement just won't work out for them.

5) I included Pop-Ups on points 3-4 on the youtube itself. I wish there was a way to correct it on the broadcast or from the news-end of it but in the absence of such an opportunity I just pray that no one got the wrong impression about #3 and our commitment to our babies, and that word quickly spreads about both opportunities described in #4.

All that being said however, I was still pretty pleased with the broadcast. I felt like it painted a positive and largely accurate picture. I am glad for the generous amount of time they gave it (the entire news broadcast itself was only 35 minutes including commercials) and mostly I'm grateful for the exposure it gave Embryo Adoption. May God use it to reach many more families!

7 comments:

  1. Jen - I thought that you were very well spoken. It's too bad that they misrepresented the fact that any unused embryos would be returned to the genetic parents, but overall I think that it will reach people that otherwise may not have heard of embryo adoption.
    P.S. You & hubby looked so cute!

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  2. Jen-I thought you and Todd did a wonderful interview, and I hope this gets helps get the word out to more people. You are both still in my continued thoughts and prayers. And you both look great!!

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  3. Wow, Jen! What a video! It was great! Barring the doctor's "desperate for children" quote, it was really positive and informative. I'm glad you made us aware of their factual errors. I hope you get a lot of good awareness from this video! I'm going to link to it from my blog.

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  4. idreamincolordoyouApril 1, 2009 at 3:45 PM

    I too thought you were very well spoken. Even though the news spot wasn't completely correct, I appreciate that they cast the story in a positive light!

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  5. I'm so excited you got to get the word out there about EA! I think you did a wonderful job and I was just tearing up at the end.

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  6. Great job getting the word out! It was my pleasure to post about this on my blog. I can't wait to see you become a mommy! It will happen I know it! :) God bless!

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  7. You and your DH did a beautiful job - I just totally cried when you came up on the screen. (((hugs)))

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