Facebook Helps Couples Start Their Own Family As An Aspiring Mom Finds An Embryo Donor In The Social Media Website

Having children is every couple's dream, but, for many like Rayn and Richard Galloway this is not as easy as others. The aspiring parents go for an unconventional solution to parenthood by answering a Facebook post about a family's offer to donate frozen embryos.  

Recently Facebook helped one Tennessee family find a home for their unused embryos, CNN affiliate WSMV reports.

Citing their struggle to conceive, Angel and Jeff Watts turned to in vitro fertilization. The couple was left with two sets of twins and six unused, frozen embryos. The couple said that vitro fertilization blessed them with two set of twins, ages 3 years old and 16 months.

Angel and Jeff Watts decided to donate the six unused frozen embryos with the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, WSMV reported.

But even two years later, the embryos, housed at the donation center were still unused.

In an interview with WSMV, Angel Watts said, "What I didn't realize is that there's a lot of competition out there," she added, "That center has over 300 sets."

Stephanie Wood-Moyers, marketing and public relations manager for the National Embryo Donation Center said, "The more restrictions, stipulations that the donors place on the recipients, the longer it's going to take to find a match."

The average wait time for open communications arrangements such as the one Watts was seeking, where the donor has contact with recipient, is estimated to be anywhere between 6 months to 4 years, Wood-Moyers added.

As frustration started to build in, Watts opted for an unconventional route in hopes of giving others the chance of starting a family of their own and to find a home for her embryos. She posted on Facebook, giving details of the kind of family she and her husband were looking for: married several years, in a steady loving relationship, strong Christian background, roots in Tennessee.

Watts said, "And I made sure I let people know, you know, this is not a gimmick, no games. I'm not getting any money for this."

In less than three weeks the couple settled on a family, Rayn and Richard Galloway of Cookeville, Tennessee after they received hundreds of responses.

In an interview with WSMV, Rayn Galloway said, "We don't look like what people would statistically say 'Oh those people are infertile.' We just look like a happy, young married couple."

Rayn added that she stumbled upon the post and jumped at the possibility. She even visited with Angel Watts and her family.

She told WSMV, "Meeting them and seeing their children and seeing how they interact as a family, their interests, just their personalities as a whole, is very similar to my husband and I."

Angel Watts said she wants her kids to know the Galloway family as they will be genetically connected forever. Rayn, who plans to have two transfers of three embryos each, with the first transfer probably by May, said, "Those are her babies, and she is giving me that gift, "The least that I can do is let her have a relationship, see those children and have a relationship for her own children's sake." she added.

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