Frozen Embies, what should I do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

Seriously? You wouldn't find it a bit odd if you ended up running into your kids in the neighborhood? Kids who look like you but are being raised by someone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

Seriously? You wouldn't find it a bit odd if you ended up running into
your kids in the neighborhood? Kids who look like you but are being
raised by someone else?

OMG, yes. Why is this so hard to understand that I am okay with giving up embryos to families who want children? Do you know how hard adoption is? They couples meet with therapist, there are extra costs involved, and this is all in addition to IVF costs. The people adopting will have the resources to give the child a good life and the child will be wanted. Why can't you accept that there are good infertile couples or GLBT couples who are looking to build a family!?? Do you hate infertile who have to use donor embryos? Not everything is about you. There are other people out their suffering from infertility and if I can help in this way then hell yes I am going to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

Seriously? You wouldn't find it a bit odd if you ended up running into
your kids in the neighborhood? Kids who look like you but are being
raised by someone else?

OMG, yes. Why is this so hard to understand that I am okay with giving up embryos to families who want children? Do you know how hard adoption is? They couples meet with therapist, there are extra costs involved, and this is all in addition to IVF costs. The people adopting will have the resources to give the child a good life and the child will be wanted. Why can't you accept that there are good infertile couples or GLBT couples who are looking to build a family!?? Do you hate infertile who have to use donor embryos? Not everything is about you. There are other people out their suffering from infertility and if I can help in this way then hell yes I am going to do it.

Some people's religion tells them that GLBT couples should not be couples or have children. And if you think God/universe takes care of everything, why did you go though IVF? Universe would have taken care of your issue, no?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I will have to decide this very issue soon - i.e. What to do with frozen embryos that we don't intend to use. We have looked into the donation route and here is what we have learned thus far. There are so many more couples out there who would love to go through IVF with donor eggs but cannot afford to. Donated embryos are a more affordable path. Shady Grove, in fact, has just started an embryo donation program for this very reason. Only you can decide if donating your frozen embryos is the right path for you, but, the way I think about it is as follows. We got pregnant with the help,of a donated egg. The woman who donated to us did so without meeting us or knowing who her eggs would go to or what kind of environment we would raise our child in. She donated because she wanted to help someone have children. If you feel similarly, then, consider donating. There is no right or wrong answer. Therr are other embryo donation places outside of the DC area if you have a concern about your embryos landing with a local area couple. One is Snowflakes, which is on the west coast I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I will have to decide this very issue soon - i.e. What to do with frozen embryos that we don't intend to use. We have looked into the donation route and here is what we have learned thus far. There are so many more couples out there who would love to go through IVF with donor eggs but cannot afford to. Donated embryos are a more affordable path. Shady Grove, in fact, has just started an embryo donation program for this very reason. Only you can decide if donating your frozen embryos is the right path for you, but, the way I think about it is as follows. We got pregnant with the help,of a donated egg. The woman who donated to us did so without meeting us or knowing who her eggs would go to or what kind of environment we would raise our child in. She donated because she wanted to help someone have children. If you feel similarly, then, consider donating. There is no right or wrong answer. Therr are other embryo donation places outside of the DC area if you have a concern about your embryos landing with a local area couple. One is Snowflakes, which is on the west coast I think.

I think you're skating over a very important aspect. The egg donor does it for money. It's a woman who needed funds and decided to do it this way.
Also, think about it, if a couple can't afford donor eggs, what else they won't be able to afford to raise your child? (or your husbands, technically, since you used donor eggs).

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I have two elementary school-aged nieces who were donated embryos and they are a light and joy to their loving and grateful parents who could not conceive naturally. One niece has a semi-open relationship with biological parents, one doesn't. By all counts, everyone benefited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

Seriously? You wouldn't find it a bit odd if you ended up running into
your kids in the neighborhood? Kids who look like you but are being
raised by someone else?

OMG, yes. Why is this so hard to understand that I am okay with giving up embryos to families who want children? Do you know how hard adoption is? They couples meet with therapist, there are extra costs involved, and this is all in addition to IVF costs. The people adopting will have the resources to give the child a good life and the child will be wanted. Why can't you accept that there are good infertile couples or GLBT couples who are looking to build a family!?? Do you hate infertile who have to use donor embryos? Not everything is about you. There are other people out their suffering from infertility and if I can help in this way then hell yes I am going to do it.

Some people's religion tells them that GLBT couples should not be couples or have children. And if you think God/universe takes care of everything, why did you go though IVF? Universe would have taken care of your issue, no?

This poster is just looking to pick a fight. Just accept some people want to donate and some don't.

[Anonymous]

I have done 4 fresh cycles, about to go into my 5th.

When we did our first one, we were presented with the forms that ask what we would want to do with any frozen embryos. DH and I said research.

Fast forward to today and being on the not so lucky side of IVF and infertility. If this cycle doesn't work, we will be exploring embryo adoption. You can have an open adoption, OP, and still be involved in that child's life. While you are the genetic mother and father, once the transfer is complete the woman carrying that embryo/baby is the legal mother.

There is no easy answer. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really wanted to donate mine but never made a decision and years passed. Then I did not want to pay for the testing years later. Then my DH inherited some money and at the same time some genetic defects were discovered when my kids were older. So we felt that we might be exposed to risk / lawsuit if we let them be adopted. Not to mention the uncertainty to another couple. We opted for thaw in the end.

The point being that things change... we found out things later, but our responsibilities remained the same. We were so excited when our baby was first born.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have four embies left. I was sort of tempted to PGS them and then decide. I would like to have another one--I have IVF twins already. We have talked about putting them up for adoption to give another couple a chance to be parents. I don't view it as my children being out there. Yes, they are my genetic material but another woman would carry them and she would be "Mom" from day one. All this said, I don't think anyone would want to adopt my embies because one of my twins had a rare error in cell division that caused a very, very rare syndrome. It is not genetic but I don't think people will understand it and would elect not to choose the embies. I think this is another reason I might just transfer all of them--not at once!--and perhaps have them PGS tested to make it easier. I don't know if this is helpful. 5 embies is a lot!

So fascinating reading all these and I am looking at a sp em donor and confronting some of these issues re who is "dad" and who is donor. Honestly I was brought up that if they were your children, they were YOUR children. The birth mother was the mother. The donor was the father. Etc etc. I wonder if this is a republican/ democrat thing with republicans being nature and dems being nurture. Anyone else have thoughts on potential political influences?

I am the first poster here with the 4 embies. I am a democrat if that helps. Ha. Oddly enough though, I am fairly religious and think all the embryos should have a chance and I would love to give another couple a chance at being parents. I also think carrying is an intimate experience and with what we know about epigenetic, the woman carrying the donated embryo would have a biological impact on the embryo's development. I think we could do a fairly interesting study (I am a trained researcher) to see if political affiliation has an impact or association but I would look at religion (sect), spirituality, age, and education level.

So if neighbors on your street had your four embryos you'd be okay with this?

Wow, who are your neighbors? I would be fine with it. There is where I am religious. The embryos deserve a chance at life and I believe that God/the universe/etc is going to take care of them and that giving such a blessing to a couple would be a beautiful gift. I don't think people are inherently evil nor do I think my neighbors are terrible crappy parents. In fact, my neighbors have raised some wonderful humans---they are all in college, working to become engineers or social justice workers/activists or they graduated from college and have families and are contributing members of society. This is a really personal decision. I totally get why the person with 20 embryos won't give them up for adoption. But to be frank, statistically speaking, of the four embryos I have, only one or two are viable.

All this said the people who are being judgmental jerks, just stop. We all fought to be parents and we are fortunate enough to have embryos to make decisions about. It is not our place to judge someone for deciding how to handle the embryos left. We have a load of people judging us for doing IVF in the first place and we are better than that! OP asked what other people are doing and people have been generous in sharing. OP needs to make up her mind on her own and find her own peace just like the rest of us.

Seriously? You wouldn't find it a bit odd if you ended up running into
your kids in the neighborhood? Kids who look like you but are being
raised by someone else?

OMG, yes. Why is this so hard to understand that I am okay with giving up embryos to families who want children? Do you know how hard adoption is? They couples meet with therapist, there are extra costs involved, and this is all in addition to IVF costs. The people adopting will have the resources to give the child a good life and the child will be wanted. Why can't you accept that there are good infertile couples or GLBT couples who are looking to build a family!?? Do you hate infertile who have to use donor embryos? Not everything is about you. There are other people out their suffering from infertility and if I can help in this way then hell yes I am going to do it.

OMG! Yes but !! I did not want my embryos brought up with people who !!!! Because they seem dumb ??!! And maybe then they could not afford a baby ??!! How did this become my job to provide lower cost embryos to others ?? Not everything is about you either ??

[Anonymous]

I've posted about this before. We had embryos left over from a DE cycle. We initially were going to donate to science, but then after we completed our family, we felt that giving the embryos a chance with another family felt right.

We found a couple through Miracles Waiting, and we clicked. We have what I would call a semi-open donation situation. There is a minimum amount of contact we've all agreed to, and that allows space and privacy for everyone but also it preserves the option for more contact (especially for our kids and their kids).

FWIW, this feels as though it was absolutely the right choice. You know how in Juno, the lead character says she felt as though the baby always belonged to her(Jennifer Garner's character)? That's how it feels.

Staunch pro-choice agnostic Democrat here. I also support donating to science or destroying the embies when you're done. You've got to do what feels right to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thaw and discard. They are just clumps of cells as far as I am concerned. Easy peasey.

Truly disgusting. I hope this is a troll.

How can women who have suffered through so much to create human life be so cavalier about its destruction?

It's completely disingenuous and immoral to claim that human embryos aren't, well, human. How can someone who has experienced the enormous physical and emotional tolls of IVF deny that each embryo is precious?

We will donate our extra blastocysts to an adopting couple because it's the right thing to do for other families in need, as well as the new lives created by IVF.

Because I have had numerous fertilized embryos and chemical pregnancies over the years and only one became an actual life. Fertilized eggs are not yet babies. They are just potential babies. It is not a human baby til it is born (or close)

[Anonymous]

We paid close to $60K for those embies. The clinic required more parental testing and shipping costs. I felt that i had given enough money at the clinic already. We had daycare expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I will have to decide this very issue soon - i.e. What to do with frozen embryos that we don't intend to use. We have looked into the donation route and here is what we have learned thus far. There are so many more couples out there who would love to go through IVF with donor eggs but cannot afford to. Donated embryos are a more affordable path. Shady Grove, in fact, has just started an embryo donation program for this very reason. Only you can decide if donating your frozen embryos is the right path for you, but, the way I think about it is as follows. We got pregnant with the help,of a donated egg. The woman who donated to us did so without meeting us or knowing who her eggs would go to or what kind of environment we would raise our child in. She donated because she wanted to help someone have children. If you feel similarly, then, consider donating. There is no right or wrong answer. Therr are other embryo donation places outside of the DC area if you have a concern about your embryos landing with a local area couple. One is Snowflakes, which is on the west coast I think.

I think you're skating over a very important aspect. The egg donor does it for money. It's a woman who needed funds and decided to do it this way.
Also, think about it, if a couple can't afford donor eggs, what else they won't be able to afford to raise your child? (or your husbands, technically, since you used donor eggs).

This has to be seriously one of the dumbest things I have read here. People who conceive without ART are not coughing up north of $50k for donor eggs, yet most seem to raise their kids just fine.