[prue~c]

I got a phone call from a journalist a few weeks before I had our twins who was writing a story on frozen embryo donation. It was one of those bizarre things because the previous day, I had received a bill on the mail for six months of cryostorage for the embryos we have left. It precipitated a discussion with my husband as to what we might do with our remaining embryos.

There are four options for remaining frozen embryos after you have had children. You can either continue trying for more children by transferring them back into the uterus in a frozen embryo cycle; you can donate them to couples/singles who haven't been able to produce their own; you can donate them for research, or you can have them destroyed.

We only ever wanted two children. Now that we have our twins, at some stage we will need to make the decision as to what to do with our remaining embryos. It's not a decision we need to make straight away, because embryos can be stored for several years, but eventually we will need to decide what to do.

When I first started thinking about it, I was all for donating to another couple. The classifieds sections of parenting magazines like Sydney's Child as well as the Essential Baby donor forum are full of people pleading for donor embryos. The embryos we have in storage are 100% the DNA of me and my husband. Any potential children that result from them would be 100% siblings to our boys. And now that I have my boys, I admit to being less likely to want to donate them. Before I had children (yes, having them has made me reevaluate my stance on several things) I saw the embryos as nothing more than specks of tissue. Five cells, rather than potential people.

Now that the boys are here, I have been thinking about how I would feel about another couple bringing up what are genetically our children. How would I feel if, heaven forbid, something happened to one of my boys that needed some kind of donation – be it organ, blood, tissue or cells. Do I have the right (moral, not legal) to ask the parents of any children resulting from a donation of our embryos to offer up the parts of their children to ours? After all, we gave them the building blocks for life. Or what if the tables were turned and those children needed something my boys could provide? Would I be obligated, morally, to offer?

The option least favourable to me is to destroy the embryos. What a waste of technology, time, pain (on my behalf) and opportunity to essentially rinse them down the sink. Without research on donated embryos, developments in IVF technologies would be nowhere near as advanced as they currently are.

I have also read that some religious women will have the embryos transferred back into the uterus at an inopportune time, when the embryo is unlikely to survive, just to keep their conscience clear and so they can tell themselves they haven't destroyed life. I don't get the difference between that and flushing the embryos down the loo, but if it makes them feel better about themselves, whatever.

And after such a complicated and painful pregnancy, I am 99% sure I won't be using the embryos myself, and while I would love to give a childless couple the most wonderful gift in the world, for the time being, those little specks of us will continue to sit in suspension.

[fooiesmum]

We have 1 child conceived via IVF, I was always sure 1 would be the perfect number for our family and I'm still sure of that decision.

As to what to do with the single remaining embryo, I am unable to make a decision, so for the foreseeable future I'll keep paying the storage fee, possibly until the clinic considers it to be no longer viable to store, then the decision will be taken out of my hands.

So maybe no decision will end up being a decision in it's own right?

[Divine MsM]

DH and I have been discussing this. We're expecting #3 in 4 weeks. But we still have another 4 on ice. I want 1 more but DH wants to stop - mainly because of the physical toll pregnancy takes on me as I get older, as well as the fact that he feels he's getting to old to look after really little ones.

Not sure what we're going to do. Our first frozen transfer failed. Our second one succeeded, so we have a success rate of 50%. I've always wanted 4 - not sure I could cope with more.

Be interesting to see what decision other people make and why.

[Freckles]

As the Moderator of the Donor Conception Support section I have some understanding of what a momentous decision this is, regardless of what you ultimately decide. The rational part of my brain likes the idea of giving 'leftover' embryos to someone who desperately wants a baby. However there are lots of ramification of doing so and the more you think about it the harder it becomes. I don't know what the answer is. I suspect that the answer is different for everyone, depending on their background, history, family make up, morals and more. Definitely food for thought!

[Faith75]

We are in the same boat and are very undecided on what will happen with our 7 frosties, we have given ourselves a 5 year time frame to have a good long think about what to do...

[Puddycat]

Again, like the PP, we have no idea as to what to so with ours either.

We did 7 full stim cycles with only one FET, and most of the time we didn't even make it to transfer, or if we did it was a crappy embryo. So I never thought that this was a decision we would need to make.

Then I got pregnant, with twins, but miscarried them. From this cycle we had, for the first time ever, a frozen embryo. I was hesitant about using it, as the two other embryos from this batch had obviously had something wrong with them. Plus, the miscarriage of the twins was the darkest period of my life. I couldn't fathom these frozen one working, and I was petrified that if it did result in a BFP that I would miscarry again. I'm not sure if it was my negative thinking, but I was secretly relieved when it didn't thaw very well, but we transferred it anyway and it was a BFN.

Fast forward several more (disastrous) cycles and we get another BFP. Again it was twins. I'm now 25 weeks pregnant (and loving it) while also being petrified every single step of the way.

Murphy's law - we finally have two good frosties - but finally we are pregnant. Admittedly, we don't have the babies in our arms yet, but each passing week the chances of us taking the babies home increases. I still cant believe our luck.

I doubt we will have anymore children. The twins will be plenty. Before we were lucky enough to get our BFP I always thought of donating any excess embryos (if we ever had any). But now we are having our own children I realise that they are 100% biologically related to our babies. And that clouds my thinking.

For now, we will continue to pay the storage fee. And later, who knows. Its not a decision we will make lightly or easily. In one way, I wish we didn't have them, as then we wouldn't have to make this decision.

[christmasiscomin...]

I could have written this blog post myself, almost word for word. We have had one cycle of ICSI back in 2008 and it resulted in 3 viable embryos. One embryo was implanted in May 08 and we're pleased to say he is now a happy 2yo boy running crazily around our house each day.

Since then I have fallen pregnant naturally (and unexpectedly) and given birth to another little boy in February this year. I'd always imagined that we would just go back to the clinic and try a FET cycle and 'use up' our embryos first before we 'tried' naturally however that decision was made for us.

I always assumed I would be completely happy to offer any 'leftover' embryos to a childless couple to help them become parents, thinking in my mind that these were just 'cells' and not 'my children' until I had carried them and birthed them. However, I have since talked to alot of people about it, and they have given me alot of other scenarios to think about... the most compelling one came from my SIL who is adopted. She has tried in vain to contact her birth parents her whole adult life, if only to get medical history etc etc This scenario is possibly something that these 'donated children' (for lack of a better term) would also face later in life - questions about where did they come from, why did they give us up, what would my biological family have been like etc etc so for me it was a case of it's just not that easy to 'donate' these embryos anymore. To an extent you'll always have ties to them and morally, can you stay anonymous knowing that 'your' children might be searching for you to answer questions later in life about their biological makeup and so forth.

Needless to say I am now more on the fence about the whole situation than I ever was. I dont really want them destroyed as I know that another couple would gladly take them in a heartbeat just for the chance that they would result in a child however I'm not sure I personally want another 2 children either now that I already have 2.

I am starting to lean towards donation to research so that at least they are going to help others in some small but significant way... funny how we dont think about this though BEFORE we decide to undergo the egg pick-up procedure ...

[~Mintie~]

This is something we'll also be facing in the future. We have 2 frosties, and planned to use them to complete our family. However fate took a turn and has given us a naturally conceived surprise baby, something I always longed for but had accepted wouldn't happen for us. And whilst I wouldn't change it for the world, it does raise the question of what we will do with our frosties if we're now able to conceive the rest of our family naturally.
I would truly love to give someone the gift of a baby by donating my embryos, but a large part of me is stopping me from seriously considering it. Those embryos are 100% us. So I have the same thoughts as yourself, someone out there would be raising our child. I know it's just a bunch of cells, and having faced the possibility of having no children I understand how big of a gift it could be to someone. But I just don't think I could do it. So it leaves me confused, anxious and undecided on what we will end up doing with our embies. I think the only option I will be willing to consider is to donate to science.
I know it's no consolation, but I do hope to become an egg donor one day, as I feel I can easily deal with that, and I believe I will be able to do that as the infertility issue was with my DH not myself. The only issue is I'm unsure if I will have completed my family before I turn 35yrs.

Anyway, I hope you come up with a decision that you are at peace with, it's such a very hard choice to make. Congratulations again on the birth of your boys

[gefadi]

It seems that a lot of us that have been through successful IVF with snow babies in storage are faced with the same dilemma.

Like pp's, I too have twin girls from a successful "fresh" cycle and 1 snow baby. Our girls are now 16 months old.

We too were happy with our girls and had no real plans of having anymore children, but every time the invoice arrived in the mail about our snow baby, the same questions always arose. I just happily paid the storage fees, as I couldn't bring myself to make a decision. Even though I was happy with the twins, because this embryo is " our child " there was an element of what if.

Well, I guess our decision was made for us, when we fell pregnant naturally, expecting our third ( yes there is only 1 bubba on board!), so we have just paid the next 6 months, just to ensure this baby arrives safely, then we will happily donate our embryo to research. After all, if it wasn't for science, technology and advancements in research with IVF, we wouldn't have our two beautiful girls.

I don't think I could be that very "special" person and donate our "child" to someone else, always wondering if we had a son or daughter being raised by someone else. Though I fully appreciate the pain and desire childless couples face, having been there for many years whilst undergoing IVF ourselves, I am not sure I have the selflessness in me to donate. I understand the odds of FET working a less than a fresh cycle, but as pp have successfully conceived through FET, it does work, and this snow baby is from the same "batch" as our girls I often wonder if this makes the odds stronger?

I admire anyone that can donate their embryos to other couples, and I highly commend you for this selfless act, but I am afraid, I pike out on this one.

Di

PS

[harrison~at~last]

We have 4 children as a result of IVF. Our family is complete and we still have 5 embryo's on ice. We kept them there until the triplets arrived safely into the world. Not as any insurance policy, but just because we were never sure if we'd have any let alone all 3 arrive safely.

We won't even consider donating them to another couple, there's too many moral roadblocks there for us. In a state the size of SA, and having 4 children, what if one fell in love with a child who was biologically their brother or sister?

I'm not sure about donating to research, DH doesn't want them 'doing things' to them.

We certainly won't be using them ourselves, we only ever planned 2 children.

I guess the only other option is having them destroyed, I'll get around to calling the clinic eventually. Better do it sooner rather than later so I don't have to keep paying for the storage!