Snow Babies...

Recently, I have been asked many questions about our potential and future embryos and what we would do if had any “left over’s”. I found that in these questions there are a lot of misconceptions about exactly what an embryo is and what we are lawfully allowed to do with them.


First, let me say we have already filled out legal paperwork regarding what we would do if we have more embryos than we can transfer. Hopefully, we WILL have additional embryos to cryopreserve (freeze) for subsequent pregnancies. I like to refer to these little embryos as “snow babies”. If we would like to become pregnant again after the first or if the fresh cycle is unsuccessful, we would do an FET (frozen embryo transfer). These are significantly cheaper than a fresh cycle, costing around $2,500 +meds. Obviously, you need snow babies to do this, so a previous fresh cycle is necessary and the nail-biting comes with the thaw of the little guys. Sometimes, they do not survive. So, firstly, we would love to have some snow babies put on ice for use in the future.


So, what if we have extra snow babies after we are done having children? We went back and forth with this. My first initial thought is that we had to give all the embies a chance. Michael thought I was little crazy with potentially wanting to be Octo-Mom. I mean, what if we have 12 embies? I felt guilty for not thinking we would use all of them, seeing as how badly I have wanted this in the first place. So, with more thought, I knew this was unreasonable. We found out we only have few options:


• Cryopreservation- $600 annually to keep the snow babies on ice, $2500 + meds to do a FET.  They will do this until I am 50 years of age and then they will be "discarded". Hmmmm.


• Donation- we can donate the embies to research or to another couple. Although, donation of embies to another couple is not legal in Utah, they can transfer the little guys to another lab, in another state and they can be donated there. We have discussed this to great lengths and ultimately, we would not be comfortable with carbon copies of us running around somewhere with no claim to them except our genes. It would be rather like putting our own children up for adoption and why would want to do that?


Yes, the research part of this option is stem cell research…GASP! However you might feel about stem cell research let me say, it’s probably not what you think. Most common of misconceptions have come from little knowledge of this kind of research and I want to clear something up…an embryo looks like this:

NOT this!

The second picture is a fetus, not an embryo. The stem cells come from the first picture...what it looks like from days 3-5 after conception. Stem cells can only come from blastocysts in the embryonic stage. They do not come from aborted babies. Embryos are considered to be so during weeks 3-8, after which they are considered to be a fetus. The first picture is what is transfered on day 3 or 5 during an IVF cycle, not what is pictured below that.  I guess it’s up to you to decide when you believe life begins. Some believe it’s the moment of conception, others, when life can be sustained outside the womb. I personally believe a fetus receives a spirit inside the womb but haven’t concluded when that actually happens. I think maybe when it has a beating heart but I don't know?  I guess it up to us and you to decide. And our last option…


• Discard- this is a really soft and fuzzy way of saying, destroy the embryos. I have not asked how this task is carried out but I imagine they just somehow let them die by not sustaining their life.


I suppose it’s not hard to guess which box we checked last week. We have decided that we will be donating our embryos to research. We decided that we did not want to be Octo-parents and if the only other option was to have them destroyed anyway, they might as well be studied for the progression of science. The best case scenario would be to only have as many embies as we would like to have children and have the cycles be successful each time but that is not likely. Think what you would like, judge ye not. It’s not an easy decision.  And, I apologize.  This was definitely not meant to be my platform for stem cell research...I am still very much up in the air about it but for these purposes...well, you know.