Anonymous wrote:I honestly can't imagine being someone who benefited from IVF and then chose thaw over science. Like, if your options were donate or thaw, sure, I can envision good reasons to make either choice; similarly, if your choices were donate v. science. But thaw over science? Why on earth?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with this too! Thankfully, I only had one to worry about. My husband would have felt fine donating it but I would always wonder too, about a part of us that is out there and not knowing if or knowing about their life. I didn't have any medical reason not to but felt obligated to give this thing we started a chance at life or something. it was really overwhelming at first (I am 43 and have 5 kids already and a grandchild! Two of my children are adults though so it's not like I have 5 little ones in the house. Anyway, we gave it a shot and I am 30 weeks along! Now I am looking forward to the baby and everyone else is excited as well. But 5 embryos is another story! There are agencies you can donate through where you can negotiate a certain amount of contact or info after the fact.

Yikes. I'm picturing my embryos trying to find me later in life. All 20 of them.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let them be adopted by an infertile couple. For you they are clumps of cells with a promise of life, for them it will be their child.

Do not push your agenda on others. Donation is not for everyone. An infertile couple can use donor eggs and sperm.

Anonymous wrote:why are we calling these things "embies" now? is it to make them seem cuter and therefore more human?

Anonymous wrote:Please stop saying embies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with this too! Thankfully, I only had one to worry about. My husband would have felt fine donating it but I would always wonder too, about a part of us that is out there and not knowing if or knowing about their life. I didn't have any medical reason not to but felt obligated to give this thing we started a chance at life or something. it was really overwhelming at first (I am 43 and have 5 kids already and a grandchild! Two of my children are adults though so it's not like I have 5 little ones in the house. Anyway, we gave it a shot and I am 30 weeks along! Now I am looking forward to the baby and everyone else is excited as well. But 5 embryos is another story! There are agencies you can donate through where you can negotiate a certain amount of contact or info after the fact.

Yikes. I'm picturing my embryos trying to find me later in life. All 20 of them.

Oh for the love of God, we all know you have a gazillion embryos. Enough already.

I hope the 20 embryo person realizes that unless they are pgs tested normal, statistically speaking maybe half of them are good. An embryo doesn't automatically mean thb. But we get you could be the IVF Duggar....

I am the IVF duggar! 19 of them are pgs normal.

Anonymous wrote:Let them be adopted by an infertile couple. For you they are clumps of cells with a promise of life, for them it will be their child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with this too! Thankfully, I only had one to worry about. My husband would have felt fine donating it but I would always wonder too, about a part of us that is out there and not knowing if or knowing about their life. I didn't have any medical reason not to but felt obligated to give this thing we started a chance at life or something. it was really overwhelming at first (I am 43 and have 5 kids already and a grandchild! Two of my children are adults though so it's not like I have 5 little ones in the house. Anyway, we gave it a shot and I am 30 weeks along! Now I am looking forward to the baby and everyone else is excited as well. But 5 embryos is another story! There are agencies you can donate through where you can negotiate a certain amount of contact or info after the fact.

Yikes. I'm picturing my embryos trying to find me later in life. All 20 of them.

I had 12 left from a proven donor and two already with genetic issues. I pictured that the laws would change, records would be opened or leaked (we found out who the anon donor was in 10 minutes) and a family suing us for some form of custody/ compensation later. Because this happened in CA. Privacy went right out the window. So we just went with donate to science.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with this too! Thankfully, I only had one to worry about. My husband would have felt fine donating it but I would always wonder too, about a part of us that is out there and not knowing if or knowing about their life. I didn't have any medical reason not to but felt obligated to give this thing we started a chance at life or something. it was really overwhelming at first (I am 43 and have 5 kids already and a grandchild! Two of my children are adults though so it's not like I have 5 little ones in the house. Anyway, we gave it a shot and I am 30 weeks along! Now I am looking forward to the baby and everyone else is excited as well. But 5 embryos is another story! There are agencies you can donate through where you can negotiate a certain amount of contact or info after the fact.

Yikes. I'm picturing my embryos trying to find me later in life. All 20 of them.

Oh for the love of God, we all know you have a gazillion embryos. Enough already.

I hope the 20 embryo person realizes that unless they are pgs tested normal, statistically speaking maybe half of them are good. An embryo doesn't automatically mean thb. But we get you could be the IVF Duggar....

Anonymous wrote:This blog has a series about a couple who adopted embryos: http://www.hellobee.com/mrs-pickles-embryo-adoption-series/

Very interesting from the perspective of the adopting parents.