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.
