Thursday, September 25, 2008

What Do with Frozen Embryos?

Thousands of individuals and couples face the dilemma of what to do with the unused frozen embryos after they have completed their family or either decided to stop IVF treatment and build their family using other means. One couple I talked to has three children and 17 frozen embryos on ice. The couple do not want to destroy them or adopt them to another couple and they think they want to donate them to medical research, but two after after speaking with them on this subject, their embryos are on still on ice in the IVF physician's office.

Like the mother in this article, I did not have to face those difficult decisions because I did not have any frozen embryos left. However, I worked with a couple who thought, like the couple in the article, that they would donate their embryos to another couple struggling with their fertility. Fast-forward 2 years and the couple panicked when the IVF center actually found a recipient couple who wanted their embryos. The donor couple was finished having their children (twins) but they couldn't donate what they thought of as their children to another couple they didn't know. They backed out of the program and the recipient couple found another couple that donated their embryos to them.

Frozen Embryo Dilemma http://tinyurl.com/45l4lz

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