Embryo Donation/Adoption?

[Malenkaya]

Is anyone familiar with this? After several losses DH and I had taken break from TTC for about a year and a half. During this time I've remained on our fertility clinic's monthly newsletter. Last week it contained an article about embryo donation, which they are apparently going to start offering at our clinic. I called and got us on the list of patients interested in receiving donated embryos when the program is ready to go. It will be a while before it's up and running, when I spoke with them they said they are just now doing the legal portion for the couples who are donating their remaining embryos to the clinic.

I also wasn't really aware that this was an option before now either, so I thought I'd also mention it in case it was something other struggling couples wanted to look into as well. It's a pretty amazing option, from what I can tell.

[swrlgrl105]

i have heard about this. I have 5 more embryos on ice right now and am hoping to get pregnant before they are all gone. We have toyed with the idea of donating the remaining ones (if we have any) to a struggling couple.

[birdseye]

when we were going through IF treatments, this was an option we discussed extensively. I think it is amazing - you give birth to your adopted child!!! Wow!!! Because of finances, we put it on the back burner and were planning on revisiting after I finish nursing school. We recently chatted about possibly adopting an embryo to provide a sibling for the baby that surprised us.

[coquelicot]

I know someone who just delivered a baby that was an adopted embryo. Their first child was conceived through IVF, but she is biologically theirs. They couldn't get a "good" embryo on their own after that, so they used a donated one. The mom is of Italian heritage, and her son is about as fair-skinned as can be.

[Malenkaya]

I just think this is such an incredible option. The RE thinks our losses are mostly chromosomal, since DH and I are both older. I'm not sure I 100% agree with that, so I went to a hematologist and she discovered I have some immune issues - anticardiolipin antibodies and a 4G/5G PAI-1 gene deficiency. The treatment for both of those is supposed to be Lovenox, and I've been on Lovenox and miscarried anyway. So I don't know if the RE is right or if the Lovenox wasn't enough or what. But I lean towards trying the embryo donation because the RE thinks we can get around our issues that way.

[carriek38]

My RE's office does some work w/ embryo donation. I only had 2 freeze from my 1st IVF cycle, and I'm stimming for my 2nd now; the RE's office has to have some sort of agreement about what to do w/ the embryos "just in case." DP & I had a long talk about it, & while they would legally be mine (choice was between that or having them destroyed), we agreed that if anything were to happen, we'd donate them.

And on the flipside of that, we had on of DD's donorsib's moms offer embryo donation to us...they're done, but they have 2 embies from the same sperm donor & an egg donor that they'd be willing to donate, since they know we want more.

It's really weird to think about these embryos as simultaneously property that can be transferred & potential people.