Comments on Hard Boiled: A Donor Egg Blog: Left over embryos: What to do?

I'm 57 and have sons 32, 18 and 11. First from for...

2010-07-11T09:00:41.902-04:00

I'm 57 and have sons 32, 18 and 11. First from former marriage, second from my dh and me, third from late dh and and anonymous egg donation. I carried all 3 pregnancies (FET with #3).

My husband, 12 yrs younger than I, died when our youngest was just 9 mo. old. We still have 9 frozen embryos. Since my dh was adopted and donor eggs used, all 3 boys are just 1/2 brothers at best. I keep paying to store the embryos because I don't feel comfortable NOT keeping them. What if the youngest son needs a closer relative organ, stem cells, etc.? Originally we'd planned to use 'em all - hopefully to have lots of babies. IVF worked on the first cycle, and now the 9 still are unused. I'm too old - plus widowed - to use them myself. So, I continue to pay to store, and have written in my will to discard upon my demise unless one of the boys wants to use 'em.

thank you for your thoughtful post on the tough de...

2010-04-02T23:49:40.165-04:00

thank you for your thoughtful post on the tough decisions faced by those of us who have had children through ivf and now wonder what to do with those precious embryos. DH and I are struggling through this right now. We have looked at the miracles waiting site and also thought about trying again with our 2 remaining embryos. Wow. It's a tough one when you think your done but you look at your child and think about the possible sibling(s). I have also wondered about doing a "natural cycle" as part of my deal is not wanting to face the shots again but knowing this natural cycle has not nearly the chance at success.
whatever happens it was so comforting to read your post. Thank you again!

At my clinic, compassionate transfer is done at a ...

2010-01-29T00:45:43.132-05:00

At my clinic, compassionate transfer is done at a time in your cycle when you really cannot support a pregnancy -- like 5 days after your last AF, as soon as you are not bleeding. And no drug support. So there's really no chance of implantaton. That's not to say that I didn't hope... It was like infertility, reaching out to slap me upside the head, one more time! But my darlings are worth it all.

I am in the same position as you right now. My hus...

2010-01-21T14:51:00.498-05:00

I am in the same position as you right now. My husband and I have twins conceived after 4 rounds of IVF, and after they were about 18 months I really wanted to have another child. We had two embryos still in storage, so we figured "what the heck"...if it worked it worked, and if it didn't, we would have used the embryos. Well, I become pregnant, but it was only a chemical pregnancy, and it just made me want to have another baby all the more. Our insurance was about to run out, so it was do or die time. Thankfully, we became pregnant with our daughter, but now we have 4 more embryos. At first, when we started IVF 8 years ago, I was committed to donating them to science. But now that I have children that were once just frozen embryos (the twins) I am finding it terribly hard to think of the embryos as anything but potential children. The amount of money it costs to store those embryos is daunting, but I am still stuck. The compassionate disposal method sounds intriguing, but I have a very good success rate (at least since my fibroid was removed) and the idea of getting knocked up w quads is frightening to say the least. Thank you for a thoughtful post on the subject.

Bee, I really enjoyed this post. I am at the same...

2010-01-15T10:38:12.069-05:00

Bee, I really enjoyed this post. I am at the same point as you are. I have 2 beautiful children (one adopted and one through DE). I have 4 frozen embryo and now the decision has to be made. I have been putting it off but the time has come. My DE son is now 2 1/5 years old and I am 41 years old.

The decision is tough and is made with great thought. Whatever decision you made - it is the right one and don't look back or second guess.

good luck and congratulations on your 2 girls

Well, that's the thing -- donating our embryos for...

2010-01-13T13:40:04.983-05:00

Well, that's the thing -- donating our embryos for adoption wasn't really a good option for us because our first baby from DE was born with spina bifida. Nobody knows for sure what causes spina bifida and we were sure that nobody would want to adopt our embryos given that risk. But I am glad that's an optionf or some people -- I considered embryo adoption as my own path to motherhood, but because I have a stepson we went with egg donation. That way ALL the kids in our house are genetically related to my husband but not to me. Situations are so individual!

I'm reading all your comments about embryo and the...

2009-05-21T22:05:00.742-04:00

I'm reading all your comments about embryo and the best resources for them when your finished having children. Why not give them a chance for adoption. There are plenty of people who could grow these children and love them. I have two children and would love another. However, I'm 43 and know my eggs are not going to give the best batter for the best baby. I love children and am willing to give-up my own genetics for the healthiest possible situation. We all have our own psychology this is for sure. What is right for one may not be right for another. I'm looking for the healthiest egg with the best family history to give this next child the best chance for health and longevity.

Hi Ms. X. It really is sad to say goodbye to the ...

2009-04-10T14:00:00.000-04:00

Hi Ms. X. It really is sad to say goodbye to the potential of these embryos -- I haven't had my appointment yet. I keep wishing my life were different in a way that would allow me to have another child...more money, less need to work full time. But that's focusing on the negative, instead of on the incredible blessing of these two babies that I have, and the ability to take care of them with the work I (and their father) do. Thinking of you, Ms. X.

Thank you for your post. I made this decision toda...

2009-04-02T01:39:00.000-04:00

Thank you for your post. I made this decision today, and stumbled upon your blog trying to figure out what my next steps are. After years of IVF, I am blessed to have 2 children, but my last pregnancy left me unable to carry again, and I cannot afford a surrogate. Like you, I have always been opposed to abortion, so I find myself facing what seemed like an impossible position.

I actually did try to plan ahead to prevent this. When I was cycling with my second child, I tried to minimize the chances of this happening by discarding half of the eggs without fertilization, but the eggs we did fertilize did much better than we anticipated and I got pregnant on that transfer. So I find myself with these embryos and the inability to carry them. After almost 3 years of deliberation, I accepted that a compassionate transfer is the best option, but it still makes me sad. It helps to know I'm not alone. Thank you.

"3. Transfer in a way that cannot produce pregnanc...

2009-03-30T22:49:00.000-04:00

"3. Transfer in a way that cannot produce pregnancy"
Just wanted to comment this is how my cousin dealt with her two leftover embryos (after seven IVFs). They transferred them at the appropriate time of her monthly cycle, but she had no medicated support, and thus they did not take. My other cousins keep paying their annual bill for their two embryos. They would like to donate them, but are unable to.
(Nice to have stumbled across your blog.)

Hi IVFGirl! That is a viewpoint I had not thought...

2009-03-28T13:09:00.000-04:00

Hi IVFGirl! That is a viewpoint I had not thought of...about embryos being like organ donation. I remember how the nurse at my fertility clinic was talking about how they look for donors who are not "bonded" with their eggs...who would consider donating genetic material akin to donating blood, bone marrow, or an organ. You're saying the same applies to embryos in your view. It's kind of like the stem cell argument. I think what I was trying to say with my post is, if you are going to create embryos with IVF...whether it's with your own gametes or someone else's...you should think AHEAD of time about your attitude regarding the embryos. It is just not something I gave enough thought to ahead of time. Thanks for posting. It's so cool how you learn about all the other viewpoints with blogging!

For what it's worth, I thought I would but in my t...

2009-03-28T03:11:00.000-04:00

For what it's worth, I thought I would but in my two cents...
I suffer from POF and will shortly be selecting an egg donor for our 1st IVF. I've known for years that this would be my only route, but recently I've found that women were having these tough decisions with what to do with the Embryos.

I'm not a religious person, and basically, I don't see an embryo as a baby. We plan on keeping frozen embryos long enough to have two children - hopefully a boy & a girl. Once we have our family complete, both me and my husband would love to donate any extra embryos to science. It could potentially help lots of people in the future. I don't see it as any difference to being an organ donor.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts.

Anonymous, I am so, so sorry for your BFN. Losing...

2009-03-22T22:42:00.000-04:00

Anonymous, I am so, so sorry for your BFN. Losing your genetic link to your future children is a death in the family -- there's no other way to describe it. I wrote about my experience in this post: Grieving the genetic link.

My advice to you right now: Let yourself grieve. Give yourself some time. Whatever you decide to do now in order to become a mother, will be that much harder and more stressful if you do not let yourself grieve for what you have lost. Looking back, I realize that I should have given myself more time to grieve for the babies that I lost through miscarriage, which were conceived with my own eggs. I was still in that, in my head, when I became pregnant with Madelyn. It made everything more difficult. So that's my two cents there.

About your other question -- whether I had fears that I would not bond with my donor egg baby or if I would feel like it was a foreign object or another woman's child: Oh, yes! I definitely had those fears. This whole blog was my attempt to work through them.

The "other woman's child" thing wasn't a big issue for me, since I'm a stepmother. My biggest worry was that I would not bond with the baby -- would not feel like it was mine. And by then it'd be too late and I'd have done a very bad thing to the child, giving it a mother that couldn't be its mother.

I'll try to write more about it in a post when I have time to think about it more, but I will be very honest with you here: For me, going forward with donor egg was a leap of faith. I was afraid all through my cycle. It was like part of me knew it was the right thing for us...but I couldn't make those nagging little fears shut up. But once I saw the baby on ultrasound...well, I started to fall in love. And I'm still falling! Now I laugh at how afraid I was that I would not bond with my babies. My girls are mine, mine, mine! The children themselves chase the fear away.

It would be healthier, I'm sure, to get rid of these doubts and fears 100% before cycling. But I'm a worrywart and I'm very stubborn. I knew that if I waited until I felt no fear, had no self doubt...well, I'll be six feet under by the time that day comes. So I had to make the best decision I could at the time, and just go for it.

It helped that the counselor my clinic sent us to, plus every woman I heard from who had become a mother through DE, said that there were no regrets, that they flat-out adored their children. And that has, obviously, been my experience too. Not that DE still doesn't present some problems after you're a mom -- tell/don't tell and all that -- but I'd never go back. Never, ever.

Check out Pregnancy and parenting after DE IVF. Everybody there was very reassuring, when I was still making my decision.

Email me if you want. And get some sleep, what you doing posting at five in the morning? *grin*

Bee, thank goodness for you and your blog. I've fo...

2009-03-22T05:04:00.000-04:00

Bee, thank goodness for you and your blog. I've found you/it at just the right time. I'm 42 (tho my eggs oughtta know that means 29), with a common infertility story (2.5 yrs in the making, the details of which bore even me), which leaves us with little choice but DE (my DH doesn't want to adopt: 'at least it'll be half ours').

Last week got a BFN from a failed IVF-turned-IUI (1st and last) due to poor ov response - so the grief and loss of what could have been are churning, fresh and raw. Hot tears and visceral wails come while laughing, sitting, driving, reading blogs. I'm angry, and I'm in mourning; the jig is up - the dreams are dying.

But it's a comfort to see some of the feelings I'm having, the thoughts I'm trying to rationalize, mirrored in your older posts. Right now, though, a big part of me feels very alone. And I know that, if we are going to pursue the DE path, I need to get my head straight, need to deal with this grief - with the loss of never seeing my mother in the face of my child like I do in my nephew's face; of never seeing my own face in my child. I've also spent a lot of time thinking about DE (the IVF was along shot) and worrying: worried that I'll resent the baby, resent carrying another woman's child; that it will feel like a foreign object or, worse, akin to carrying my DH's (non-existent) mistress's seed. And many more thoughts and feelings too tedious and self-indulgent to express here.

Although I've debated pressing 'delete' on this a few times, I decided to post it to thank you for sharing your story. It's a candle in a window. I also wrote because I wonder whether you (or others) have felt the same way at some point ('foreign object'/lack of connection) and, if so, what kind of process did you go through to finally shake those feelings free? - L

Anonymous, I wish I could email you. You are at t...

2009-03-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

Anonymous, I wish I could email you. You are at the very beginning of all this, still in the grieving stage, when the emotions are at their very worst. And of COURSE it's hard to be around pregnant ladies, much less throw a shower -- cut yourself a break! Right at this moment I have two pieces of advice for you: One is, PLAY YOUR CARDS CLOSE TO THE VEST. It's perfectly OK to share the pain of the POV diagnosis and the fact that you are not sure what you're going to do...but don't tell everybody in your life when/if you decide to use donor eggs. Why? Well, later on, if you were to become pregnant via DE, you might decide that the information is to be private between you, DH, and your kids. And by then, the horse is out of the barn! Frankly, I wish I hadn't told anybody in my offline life -- not because I'm ashamed but because it's really my daughters' information.

Second piece of advice: Join the support board at Looking to be a Mom Thru DE.

I would love to talk to you some more, so if you feel like it, drop me a note at beedrew_at_gmaildotcom (fix as appropriate to avoid the spam bots). There will be a way through this, even though it does not seem like it right now.

J, you are NOT alone. The remaining embryos are a...

2009-03-17T23:01:00.000-04:00

J, you are NOT alone. The remaining embryos are a tough choice and you just never think about it ahead of time...I'm sad over it as I think you can tell from my post, but I just have to look at Madelyn and Lilly and know they were worth every bit of this process!

Thank you for this blog.I just found out last week...

2009-03-17T18:38:00.000-04:00

Thank you for this blog.
I just found out last week that I have diminished ovarian reserve. I am sick over it. I feel so angry that I wonder how I will ever get over this. I am 40 years old. Finally found the man I want to be with and now have to face the idea that we can't have kids together in the "normal" way.
I swear....if one more person tells me that adoption is an option as though it will just wipe this away...I will kick them!!
And I am myself adopted!!
I am surrounded by 3 pregnant women at work....and throwing one of them a shower this weekend.I really am a good nice person....and the last thing I want to do feel jealous and petty....but god help me I do.
Please HELP me!!
I feel like this is eating me alive....I am just warming up to the idea of egg donation.
Does anyone have some words of advice?
Thank you all....I could really use them.

I want to thank you for your post. As we go throu...

2009-03-17T16:40:00.000-04:00

I want to thank you for your post. As we go through the process of deciding what we should do, I know I am not alone. We want some closure, we want to say good bye.
Now that we are done having children, I think a step was over looked in the process, the end. There is so much help and information to help with infertility and once it is over, that is it. But it isn't over, we still have embyros, now what.
Thank you.

Millie, thank you for leaving a comment. The sile...

2009-03-15T23:53:00.000-04:00

Millie, thank you for leaving a comment. The silence was deafening...I know I don't write often so why would anybody stop by...but I was worried I'd written something horribly offensive! Yes, "embryo disposition" -- yukky term -- is a tough choice. And BEFORE you cycle, it's the last of your worries....

This is one of the few posts I've ever read that d...

2009-03-15T19:06:00.000-04:00

This is one of the few posts I've ever read that discusses all the options. It really is a huge decision and I appreciate the thought you put into this one (like all the ones that came before it).