Up until now, an accepted alternative pathway for couples to build a family has been the adoption process. But with recent advances in reproductive medicine, building a family through embryo donation is something newer that has made …
Tag: embryo donation
Why We Just Can’t Let Go of Our Last Embryo
In the same week I read about a soaring demand for donated embryos, we received our quarterly storage invoice. There are more than 100,000 frozen embryos – including ours, our last one – in storage in Australia and yet demand is now ”outstripping supply by about 20 to one, meaning hundreds of people are on waiting lists at IVF clinics hoping for an embryo”, as Fairfax reported earlier this month.
It’s a curious situation but, as researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney discovered, many Australian couples (more than 40 per cent) are simply refusing to donate their spare embryos.
Many who go through IVF and have stored embryos would appreciate what other infertile couples are going through (in fact, ”feeling compassion for others struggling with infertility” remains high on the list of motives of those who do choose to donate). Bearing that in mind, things just don’t seem to add up.
These latest reports hit a particularly raw nerve for us. While we may have completed our family, as time marches on, notions of donating the embryo – or blastocyst – for research (worthy) or having it destroyed (almost unthinkable) seem less and less viable. Read full article.
Childless lose out in quest for spare embryos
EVERY now and again, Sarah Crooke wonders if people who look like her are relatives she has not met.
It crosses her mind because she knows very little about the people who provided the egg and sperm for the embryo that became her in an IVF clinic 20 years ago.
Aside from some notes on their physical characteristics and interests, Sarah only knows that a woman used donated sperm to create embryos and when she was finished having children, donated the rest to a couple, rather than dispose of them like many do each year.
Sarah’s parents, Karen Boyd and Terry Crooke, were the lucky recipients. After struggling for 10 years to have children, they were one of the first Australian couples to receive someone’s surplus embryos in 1993, including the ones that became their beloved twin daughters, Sarah and Rebecca.
A few years later, a couple in New South Wales who had completed their family gave them another embryo, which created their son William, who is now 13.
Ms Boyd, 57, remains eternally grateful for the donations and says she cannot imagine loving her children any more. ”I’ve treasured every step of the way,” she said.
Despite going through the process decades ago, Ms Boyd’s experience is still rare today. While the number of people donating embryos has steadily grown in Australia since 1990, only 36 babies were born as a result in 2009, including 17 in Victoria.
At the same time, demand for donations has soared. Researchers estimate demand is now outstripping supply by about 20 to one, meaning hundreds of people are on waiting lists at IVF clinics hoping for an embryo.
Research by lawyers at the University of Technology Sydney has shed some light on why so few are available. After surveying more than 300 people with embryos in storage, they discovered many had difficulty deciding what to do with those they were not going to use. For many, it was a confronting issue they had never considered until they got a letter telling them their storage time was nearly up. Read full article.