In the Blink of an Eye: Facing the Choices of Infertility

You may not know what embryo adoption is, much less how to emotionally prepare for it. Embryo adoption occurs when someone goes through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and has leftover embryos (an egg and sperm joined together) available, then chooses to donate them to another woman to carry and raise.

I became very familiar with this topic when I was hired over a year ago as the Public Relations Manager for the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC). This job has been a continuous learning process for me, but I have been mentored well by Dr. Jeffrey Keenan, Medical Director, and Carol Sommerfelt, Embryologist.

As part of an embryo donation and adoption public awareness campaign supported with grants funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I am able to travel nationwide to educate people about embryo donation and adoption. Through the public awareness campaign, I have had the pleasure of speaking with medical professionals, social service professionals, adoption attorneys, and potential embryo donors and embryo recipients regarding the many issues surrounding embryo donation and adoption.

Through my knowledge and professional experience, one would assume my own journey with embryo donation and adoption would be an easy one. However, no amount of knowledge fully prepared me for the many emotions I would face since the beginning of my struggle with infertility.

My husband, Brian, and I were married right out of college and naturally assumed we would be able to have as many children as we desired. Unfortunately, after trying for over a year, we realized there was a problem. Following a visit to an infertility specialist, we were told I needed surgery to remove a blocked fallopian tube.

I agreed to the surgery in December, 2002, and, as I was waking up from the ordeal, I could hear the nurses talking about some poor girl who had both of her fallopian tubes taken out and I immediately wondered, "Could they be talking about me?". As I soon learned, the scar tissue had spread everywhere, blocking both of my fallopian tubes, requiring them to be removed during surgery. Within the blink of an eye, our options for creating a family became limited to in-vitro fertilization or traditional adoption.

Both Brian and I were in our early twenties and had just started our careers. We did not see how we could ever afford in-vitro fertilization when it cost around $10,000 -$15,000, not including medication, and our health insurance would only cover a lifetime of $1,000. Traditional adoption can cost upwards of $10,000-$25,000.

Six months after my surgery and after much discussion, Brian and I decided to take our savings and apply it towards our first fresh cycle of IVF. It produced a chemical pregnancy, but I had two more frozen embryos available. While my body was ready for an additional transfer again six months later, the embryos did not survive the thaw and I was unable to have a transfer.

At that point, I really wanted to proceed with traditional adoption, but my husband did not. It took two years of discussions and arguments and tears as we fought against the vision of being childless.

Brian wanted to try one more round of IVF, so, once again, our lives centered around the next injection, the next doctor's appointment...the continual hope that a baby would become ours. Neither the fresh cycle or the frozen cycle were successful, leaving us broke and with no additional embryos available. Finally, we both agreed to pursue traditional adoption.

While we waited on a birthmother to choose us, I was traveling around the country educating people about embryo donation and adoption. The more I discussed it with other clinics, the more I began feeling led to embryo adoption where I could control the womb environment, as well as the whole experience of pregnancy.

Once again my husband and I found ourselves at different places, he wanting to stick with traditional adoption and me wanting to try embryo adoption. Many months later, we agreed to try the embryo route and are now in the process of embryo adoption.

It has been a very long road, but Brian and I are looking forward to the coming year. It is difficult to imagine that I could one day be giving birth to my own adopted child.

More information about embryo donation and adoption is available through the public awareness campaign at embryodonation.org or by calling 865-218-6600.

 

This information was prepared and is being disseminated with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under grant # EAAPA941002. The statements expressed herein are those of the author and the NEDC, and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Department.

Article for Frozen Embryo Awareness

Christianity Today, July 2004
By John Van Regenmorter
posted 06/24/2004 12:01 a.m.
Frozen Out
What to do with those extra embryos.

Jim and Susanne are facing a modern moral dilemma. Desperate for a baby after struggling with infertility for eight years, they agreed to try in vitro fertilization with embryo transfer (IVF-ET). Multiple eggs were surgically harvested from Susanne's ovaries and then fertilized with Jim's sperm in the lab.

Three of the resulting embryos were implanted in Susanne's uterus in the hope that at least one would grow into a baby. The seven remaining embryos were frozen (cryopreserved) for later implantation attempts, if needed.

Surprise-Jim and Susanne are the proud parents of triplets, two girls and a boy. According to the Center for Applied Reproductive Science, triplets are unusual but not unheard of. Typically when three embryos are implanted, would-be parents can expect at best one baby. There is about a 20 percent chance of twins and a 5 percent chance of triplets, depending on the age of the couple.

Jim and Susanne are ecstatic with their triple blessing-and a bit frantic. Believing they have a full quiver, they desire no more children. They wonder, What do we do with the human life we have left on ice?

Options
Jim and Susanne are not alone. More than 400,000 frozen embryos are stored in clinics across the United States. No one knows how long frozen embryos retain their viability, but children have been born from embryos stored five to ten years.

A significant number of these embryos belong to believers. Many couples like Jim and Susanne have considered donating the embryos to the clinic storing them. But there is a hitch. The clinic offers no guarantee that recipients of their embryos will share Jim and Susanne's Christian faith.

"As Christians," Jim says, "it would grieve us to think that children we helped bring into this world would be raised in a non-Christian home and perhaps be lost for eternity."

Jim and Susanne and countless others who have created frozen embryos sitting in high-tech storage have three options:

Allow the clinic to destroy the embryos. In our culture, where embryos are not viewed as human life, such destruction is perfectly acceptable. For believers like Jim and Susanne, however, such a solution is abhorrent. Susanne says, "We agree with the philosophy of [Dr. Seuss's] Horton the Elephant, 'A person's a person no matter how small.'"

Allow the embryos to remain in storage indefinitely. This is not a life-honoring approach either. Unfortunately, according to Ron Stoddart, founder of the Snowflakes embryo adoption program in California, this is the approach that most Christian couples seem to be taking.

"Most couples want to avoid making a decision about their embryos," Stoddart says, "so they just keep paying their clinic a yearly fee to keep them in frozen storage."

Donate the embryos to another infertile couple so their embryos have a chance at life. Without doubt, this option is the most attractive for many Christians. Christians like Jim and Susanne, however, will want to make sure that their embryos are donated to couples who will raise their offspring to know the Lord.

Thankfully, there are Christian physicians and at least two national organizations that gladly honor the requests of donors to find believing couples for their embryos. One of these organizations is Nightlight Christian Adoptions in Southern California. Nightlight began the Snowflakes embryo adoption program. Why Snowflakes? As their brochure puts it, "Each frozen embryo is a beautiful, unique, fragile creation of God."

Stoddart adds, "An embryo is not a potential human life-it is human life with potential." Through the Snowflakes program, genetic parents can choose adopting parents who will meet their religious standards and values. Couples can expect to pay $6,000-$9,000 for an embryo adoption through Snowflakes.

Another organization, the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) is located at the Baptist Hospital for Women in Knoxville, Tennessee. Last spring NEDC began an embryo donation and adoption program. Endorsed by the Christian Medical Society, NEDC seeks to match unused embryos from in vitro fertilization with infertile couples across the country.

The center's goal is "to give life to these tiny embryos and to give an infertile couple a new name: parents."

Complications
Embryo donation and "adoption" is not without implications and complications.

In legal terms, there is no such thing as embryo adoption. Since our society does not grant embryos the status of personhood, the transfer of embryos from one couple to another is governed by contract law rather than by adoption law. Hence there is no legal requirement for "adopting" parents to undergo a suitability assessment, though it often takes place anyway.

Because legalities concerning the procedure remain unsettled, couples who donate and receive embryos should have a carefully written contract drawn up by a qualified attorney. Relinquishment of rights should be thoroughly addressed.

Those who donate embryos must also reckon with the emotions resulting from giving their genetic children to others. And those who give birth to embryo-adopted children must decide when and how to disclose to these children the nature of their birth.

It is not surprising, then, that couples with unneeded embryos feel conflicted. According to a 2003 national survey commissioned by RESOLVE, the national infertility association, only 18 percent of the association's members who had embryos in storage were likely to consider donating their embryos to another infertile couple.

Nevertheless, embryo adoption can be the answer to prayer-both for those burdened with unneeded embryos and also for those struggling with unresolved infertility. As one recipient of such a gift says, "To have someone say, 'They are from us, but they are for you,' is the most awesome thing."

After discovering the Snowflakes program on the Internet, Jim and Susanne are prayerfully considering donating their embryos to another Christian couple. "We really want to do the right thing," Jim says, "but it will take courage and wisdom."

Before You Begin
If a couple opts for an IVF procedure, how should they go about it? Is it necessary to produce and freeze more embryos than are needed for implantation into the womb? Why couldn't a couple decide to have only two or three eggs fertilized, and then have all the embryos transferred to the womb?

This approach would eliminate frozen embryos and seems logical and wise. Unfortunately, it is not very practical. At the best infertility clinics, the success rate for each IVF attempt is 25-50 percent. This means that many couples undergo two, three, or more IVF attempts before a successful pregnancy. Sadly, some couples who make repeated attempts never succeed.

What is more, the process of harvesting multiple eggs from a woman's ovaries is unpleasant, painful, and expensive-the average cost is $12,400. Faced with such facts, most couples who undergo IVF are willing to produce more embryos than they can use for what is known as an initial embryo transfer attempt.

Nevertheless, a number of Christian physicians, counselors, and church bodies offer the following rule of thumb: Do not allow more embryos to be formed than the number of children you are willing to parent. That is, if an infertile couple feels that they can honestly parent up to six children, then they can reasonably allow up to six embryos to be formed.

Perhaps two of the embryos will be implanted in an initial attempt, and the remainder will be frozen for later use. It is extremely unlikely that all six embryos would become viable pregnancies. If such a "miracle" should happen, the couple has predetermined that they will give all six embryos a chance at life. None of their embryos will remain in limbo on a shelf.

This life-affirming approach contrasts with creating 15, 20, or more embryos-far more children than any single couple can realistically parent.

John Van Regenmorter is co-author of When the Cradle is Empty: Answering Tough Questions About Infertility (Focus on the Family and Tyndale Publishing House, 2004). He also directs Stepping Stones, a ministry of Bethany Christian Services for infertile couples.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
July 2004, Vol. 48, No. 7, Page 32.

It's now official...

We are now officially registered to receive donated frozen embryos. We met with the RE, the counselor, and the donor nurse, and as soon as a donor couple becomes available, we will have the option to accept or decline the embryos, depending on how close of a match they are. We are excited and nervous, embarking on such a huge thing. Only the Lord knows at this point whether it is meant to work. If it is His will, this means he already know which frozen embryo(s) will be the one(s) we are meant to adopt and He already knows their names.

Here we go...

We met as friends, fell in love, and were married in the autumn of 2003. It's now been four years. Almost that entire time has been spent trying to have a family of our own. When it didn't happen like it is supposed to, we knew something was wrong. The visits to various doctors and specialists began and the costs began to rack up. We prayed and asked God, but no miracles came. His will is always perfect, even when we can't understand His ways.

We have experienced a lot of disappointment and heartbreak and some of our friends abandoned us. But God was always there. We know there are many who have been in our shoes and we grieve with them. This road is far from easy.

For a reason that doctors are not sure about, tests confirmed that both of my tubes are completely blocked. Possibly from scar tissue, the result of a surgery in 2005 that removed a baseball-sized fibroid. I never dreamed this would be my life.

We were resigned to the fact that we would probably never have biological children. Then, we were excited beyond words when our first "positive" pregnancy test on February 20, 2007 confirmed a miracle. But it ended up an ectopic pregnancy and our baby "Jewel" went to be with Jesus at 7 weeks. What a rollercoaster of emotion, from elation to devastation within 48 hours, when the diagnosis came. Thank the Lord for good doctors who know about these things.

God's love has been our sustaining comfort through all of this and we have grown closer. We sense that God has a plan--not just for us but for another person. Frozen embryo adoption has been on our minds for quite a while now.

We have begun the road to embryo adoption and pray for God's guidance, that we will do what He wants us to do. We pray for success. We hope to share this road so that others who feel they are left without hope of ever having children will know that there are options that bless not just the parents but the children who are meant to become ours.

God says His ways are not our ways and that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. This is a good thing, because His ways are as perfect as He is. 100%. We can put our trust in Him, for He does know best. May our faith grow and are obedience be according to His will.