Monkeybeans - I have to wonder if you actually know ayone that has had problems conceiving and whether you understand how heartwrenching it is to be unable to do the one thing that is supposed to be biological and a god given right! My husband and I tried for 6 yrs to conceive our own child both unassisted and with the help of a fertility doctor. We are now expecting our first child in June as the result of IVF via embryo adoption. As far as post-birth adoption goes it is extremely difficult, costly and time consuming. Adopting a caucasion baby in the U.S. can run upwards of 15-20k and can take upwards of 7 yrs. I am guessing that since you have no sympathy for those of us who have to endure torture to get pregnant, you yourself have had no problems obtaining a pregnancy. I am happy that you haven't had to go thru the months and months of pure and utter hell that it takes to get pregnant via IUI, IVF and fertility drugs. I can honestly say that when I was a little girl dreaming of becoming a mother, this isn't how I pictured it happening, but it is the way that it turned out. I am extremely excited about the thought of becoming a mother and can't wait to hold my baby girl for the first time. She will know what her biological parents did for us and how much we appreciate her. I will forever be indebted to the lovely couple that decided to donate their embryo's to a childless couple, rather than toss them to the wayside like garbage.
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Agonizing Dilemma
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Or even into their 60s?
Theoretically. Or you could get a surrogate. It's your egg, it's your material, and that of someone you love. You hear these stories where the male partner goes to Iraq. And then if you have his embryo, you can still kind of manage to recreate.
What's the problem with storing the embryos indefinitely?
It's a huge burden for these cryopreservation banks. It's expensive. It's a huge bioethical dilemma. Sometimes you lose touch with the women or couples who have preserved their embryos. What does the bank do? They can't discard the embryos themselves. What if the power is lost and they die. There are all kinds of issues. We have a situation where we have thousands of these embryos that are not doing anything.
What about an alternative like putting the embryos back in the woman's body at a time she's not likely to conceive or holding a ceremony at the time of disposal? (Seven percent of the respondents in the "fertility and sterility" survey said they were "very likely" to choose each of those options.)
That shows, I think, respect for the possibility of life. That this material is not like ordinary material.
In other words, it's not like thawing out and discarding an old pot roast?
Exactly. It's special. It's endowed. It has life potential. It's meaningful … It's important in some way. It's kind of like even when you have a stillbirth or you have a miscarriage, sometimes people want to name it and do a ceremony around that.
Is a ceremony a healthy thing to do?
Yes. Ceremonies and rituals help people kind of cope with meaningful events in their life. The ceremony makes sense to me. It's a commemoration.
Why don't centers offer more of these options?
I wonder if it's because they don't have personnel. You need someone who's trained in terms of the importance of this. Maybe having kind of a divinity person would make it more sensible than expecting a physician to do it. Have someone who knows about rituals.
© 2008
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