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02/05/2007
Leftovers
USA Today asks, "What Would You Do with Excess Embryos?"
It's an interesting question. We never had any spares. If we had, they'd have been donated once our own family was complete, either to another couple or for research. Although I like to think of myself washing the ugly ones down the garbage disposal with the dregs of a bottle of wine, drawling, "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do," I always felt it was important to do something useful with excess embryos, rather than leaving them frozen indefinitely or destroying them.
But if you're not comfortable with donation, either to another infertile recipient or to science, I am happy to say that there are other options. In case you're wondering what to do with your own leftover embryos, may I suggest the following?
1. Why waste expensive toilet paper? Instead, use human embryos: absorbent styptic patches for those annoying morning nicks.
2. Don't trust your fine breakables to conventional bubble wrap. Cushiony human embryos cradle your belongings in a gentle, if gooey, embrace.
3. Peel and stick beauty marks. They totally look real, I swear it.
4. "Not garnished? Not finished." — Ted Allen, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
5. "Rob the jewelry store and tell 'em make me a grill."
Glad you asked, USA Today?
Posted by Julie at 12:08 PM in I am full of good ideas | Permalink
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Comments (75)
I was given up for adoption, and didn't know my birth family until my twenties. Frankly I would have preferred being flushed down the toilet as am embryo - or any of the uses Julie suggests. I am ultra-protective of the "extra" embryos from our 4 IVFs. We don't yet know whether we will ever want to implant them ourselves, but without a doubt they'll never go to another family.
Posted by: Jean at Feb 5, 2007 12:27:52 PM
Oh my goodness...well, I don't know if you're getting over the grunting or not, but you're certainly up to your old, crazy tricks, and I am hoping that is a good sign :-) Thanks for the grins, as always.
Posted by: Liza at Feb 5, 2007 12:41:49 PM
Ours will go to another family. I just haven't had the heart to do it yet, because I still want another one (though my husband doesn't).
Posted by: abogada at Feb 5, 2007 12:49:57 PM
Here I was, all set to see a serious post based on the first couple of sentences in bloglines...
I'm not disappointed in the least with where you went instead, but does someone really need to embryo-wrap a chair?
If I had been so lucky to have any "left-overs", I would have most certainly let someone have them (if they were brave enough once they knew the origins of said embryos...).
Posted by: DD at Feb 5, 2007 12:59:52 PM
I never had any left over, so I'm not sure what I would have done. I would like to think that I could have donated them to another family, but I'm not sure I could have. I think it is a wonderful thing to do, but it would be hard knowing that there my kids had a full biological sibling. An egg, I could donate pretty easily, sperm, sure, but the unique combination of my husband's sperm and my egg would be harder.
We would have thought about it, but probably would have donated for research.
Posted by: legalmama at Feb 5, 2007 1:00:51 PM
I have eight left. EIGHT! Gah. I have no idea what I'm going to do. If I do give them up to another family, we've decided to ONLY give them to gay or lesbian families. Heh. Snowflake people can kiss my ass.
Posted by: Cecily at Feb 5, 2007 1:10:06 PM
We have 6 frozen. If we get twins this time, then we're probably done. (unless I can talk J into 1 more at some point) We had checked the box on the form that said we would donate them for research (either at our clinic or stem cell research) if we ever decided we didn't want them.
But after all the hardship and loss I've been though, I've started to think that maybe the right course would be to donate to another couple. Perhaps paying forward some good karma and helping to keep some other couple from experiencing the terrible heartbreak of thinking it may never happen.
Posted by: Carol at Feb 5, 2007 1:22:22 PM
We were assured at our initial consultation that we would not have any spare embryos, but we signed the forms to donate the extras to research just in case there were not only extras, but more than we'd need for a second kid. ha.
Posted by: luolin at Feb 5, 2007 1:22:50 PM
The juxtaposition of human embryos with gangsta rap : brilliant. Watch them become the next "status" item. I mean, shit, yo, they certainly cost more than any of the usual grill accouterments. And I already have, like, a DOZEN raps which incorporate this concept... "Keepin' muthafuckin' cold widdout one o' them liquid nitrogen jawns / Got me a sweet grill with blasto-cizzles all up ons".
Some friends were recently discussing Christian embryo donation groups' use of politically-charged phrases for their leftover embryos. The one which really stuck out was "snowflakes on ice". I am currently formulating a cocktail by the same name. Per the marvelous Menita's suggestion, the drink will DEFINITELY be garnished with a jumbo shrimp.
Posted by: Jul at Feb 5, 2007 1:23:34 PM
Love the embryo-bling...
Posted by: hopefulmother at Feb 5, 2007 1:44:57 PM
That last use is particularly fetching- I always think how lovely those tooth decorations are. And, combining surplus embryo disposal with tooth ruining- what's not to like?
Posted by: e at Feb 5, 2007 1:55:40 PM
I like Cecily's idea. I was going to say that I would donate them for research, but I'd probably do what Cec and her husband would do.
Posted by: Carrie Jo at Feb 5, 2007 2:00:35 PM
In a perfect world, I'd like to say I'd donate them to a family. But besides the fact that I don't think that we'll have any left once we finally get going, our egg donor, a family friend, has been very specific that any extra embryos are destroyed.
Posted by: Pam at Feb 5, 2007 2:05:16 PM
Well, I'm on the other side of this. I knew we'd never have left overs (um, we didn't even have anything to transfer in our last ivf cycle). After a couple of failed donor egg cycles, including an ectopic pregnancy, we're now hoping to build our family using donor embryos.
Those snowflake idiots really chap my hide as well but I'm hoping to find another couple that would be interested in an open donation. I thought I'd found one but it looks like it's not going to work out.
Thanks for the laughs with your creative ideas.
Posted by: millie at Feb 5, 2007 2:24:17 PM
LOL!
Posted by: at Feb 5, 2007 2:42:03 PM
Leftover embryos?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
That's a good one! People actually have those?
HAHAHAHAHAAAAA
Posted by: Janis at Feb 5, 2007 2:48:57 PM
I probably should have more to say on this (the article, and the comments- ugh!) but God, where to start?
What Millie said re: Snowflakes. I really wish people knew there were other options out there.
Liked your pics- thanks for the laugh, I needed that today.
Posted by: Leggy at Feb 5, 2007 2:52:43 PM
I think you may have finally out done yourself. I was going to comment on my own experience - none of my embryos survive thawing...but I am very concerned about the first post from Jean...She wishes she had been put down the drain. Of course I have no real context for this comment or any understanding of her life experience, BUT, that does not keep me from being concerned about a woman who feels like it would have been better not to have been born. I really hope jean was just having a bad day and does not live with that experience. Sorry Julie to co-opt your blog, but her post concerns me. She sounds desperate.
Posted by: shellie at Feb 5, 2007 3:01:42 PM
Slightly off-topic, Julie, but slightly on-topic: I wondered if you had seen that the good ole' catholic church is stymying research again, this time in Australia where they don't want embryonic stem cell research to be done in a new medical institute to be built by the University of Sydney on land sold to it by St John's College (a Catholic college). http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/uni-caveat-no-stem-cell-research/2007/02/05/1170524027089.html
So maybe Sydneysiders with excess embryos will just have to get them some Grillz, man. Or in honour of Mardi Gras, like Cecily said, more "where did they get that baby"s
Posted by: jen at Feb 5, 2007 6:23:08 PM
Great post! And Beauty Marks are in now!:)
Posted by: Beauty Bug at Feb 5, 2007 6:45:16 PM
Ok, disturbing. FUNNY...but disturbing :-P
Posted by: Tracy at Feb 5, 2007 7:03:26 PM
We have frozen embryos from our last donor egg cycle. We have no idea what to do with them. I am sure that there are legal issues here in Canada. How do you go about donating them to someone other than the freaking Christian sites? I know that I have never seen them advertised in the penny saver.
As well, I think that there are only 4 embryos which means that odds are you would get 2, maybe. I have no idea how to go about it.
I love the educational aspect of your blog. I had no idea about this fashion trend or that it could be so affordable. Now I know what to ask for for my Birthday!
Posted by: Not on Fire at Feb 5, 2007 8:37:00 PM
We have one embryo, which, given our thaw odds and my uterus's amazing skills at miscarrying, pretty much amounts to jack shit, or "Hey, a beauty mark...that sounds like a good idea."
What makes me crabby about the USA Today article (and the article's many fundie commenters) is the urge to say "Hey there...do you have a dog in this fight? Are you infertile? Have you ever done IVF? No? In that case, please tape a dirty gym sock in your mouth."
Or is that rude?
Posted by: akeeyu at Feb 5, 2007 9:47:11 PM
Now that we can clone, EVERY human cell is a potential life, no need to wait for the other half's DNA. Why should we limit the conversation to embryos?
Posted by: thrice at Feb 5, 2007 10:00:05 PM
This is one of the questions that creates the agonizing divide separating us from IVF at the moment. What would we do with them? I would see them as babies, just as much as the babies I've miscarried so far. It seems equally painful to contemplate destroying them or giving them to another family. Agonizing.
Posted by: marie at Feb 5, 2007 10:33:49 PM
Julie, you're a genius. But I can not tell you how badly that embryo-grill-bling grosses me out. eesh!
Posted by: KathyH at Feb 5, 2007 11:02:41 PM
I am so devasted you have are not aware of the new thing, sweetie. Want kids but only in the OMG this "FUCK YOU I'M RICH" onsie is so fabulous I wish I had a baby to put it in? Embroyo Louis Vutton Carriers. Gucci Embroyo holders to match your new Ipod phone.
I am so picturing Britney and Paris stumbling down the street, gleefully switching with each other's embroyos for the entertainment of the paparazzi.
Posted by: jbeeky at Feb 5, 2007 11:38:49 PM
I have 7 frozen embryos. I have agonized endlessly and I can't imagine donating them. My husband on the other hand has no problem with the idea. He's adopted and this is somehow relevant. By the way Jean's post also made me sad. In the end I wimped out and coughed up the cash to postpone the decision again for a year.
Posted by: Alana at Feb 6, 2007 12:07:58 AM
PS the "Grillz" video was so engrossing I got sucked into watching the home made knock-offs (of which there are apparently thousands) for 20 minutes, by which time I had forgotten why I was on the internet to begin with. Doh.
Posted by: Alana at Feb 6, 2007 12:09:04 AM
My IVF treatments have never worked. I have one last frozen embryo that I hope to meet soon.
....After many years of knowing & admiring fellow infertiles, I would feel happy to help another couple, if I could. There is no way I would limit that help to "Only Gay" or "Only Straight" couples.
Infertile is infertile.
..Nice work Julie.
Posted by: Simone at Feb 6, 2007 12:12:48 AM
There is no such thing as embryo adoption in Israel to my knowledge, but, in any case, I could never go through with it. I "abandoned" the 4 frosties that were left over from my last cycle (Nov 2001) that ended in a late miscarriage, followed by divorce. I never had to make any sort of decision. That's the default (they leave them frozen)... In any case, after the divorce they could not be implanted.
Posted by: Rachel Inbar at Feb 6, 2007 2:49:01 AM
I donated our embryos to research without hesitation. My clinic is specifically undertaking research into miscarriage, so I am thrilled that my embryos can be utilised in this way. Though I have been fortunate not to miscarry, so many of my blogging friends have not, so it's a matter close to my heart.
I didn't see much point in keeping the embryos in storage, even though I would like another baby at some stage and it is highly likely I'll need IVF again. The price of storage and FET, added to the slightly lessened success rate means I might as well do a fresh cycle anyway when the time comes.
Posted by: MsPrufrock at Feb 6, 2007 5:25:31 AM
This is a funny post, but not a funny situation for those of us who are in it. I'm not saying that every embryo is a baby....duh...but now that I have the twins from two frozen embryos left from a looong ago fresh cycle I look at our two remaining ones very differently. I can't imagine giving them up for adoption, for example. I would be wondering all the time, did either of them work? does he/she/them have N's nose? or D's smile? I don't want to flush them down the drain, if they're going to get destroyed it might as well be for science. But our clinic didn't even have scientific donation as an option on the form, and they don't do research themselves so we would have to take custody of them and ship them at OUR expense. It's agonizing, and I think about it regularly.
Posted by: Chickenpig at Feb 6, 2007 7:40:13 AM
I just read this at work and laughed out loud in front of my students. They're now looking at me like I'm nuts :) Too funny!
Posted by: Kat at Feb 6, 2007 8:56:13 AM
We didn't have anything to freeze, but we would like a large family and will probably keep doing IVF, so it might happen in the future. We would probably keep doing transfers until all the embryos had been used. But we have decided that anything leftover would go to research. Like MsPrufrock, I feel positively invested in helping other infertile people by donating to research. We donated my immature eggs and our "pre-embryos" (does that just mean sucky embryos?). I think the research they're doing at Cornell is incredibly important and exciting, and I'm glad I could be involved in some way.
I just read a thread on IVFC about "compassionate transfer," where the embryos are transfered into the uterus at a time in the cycle when they are unlikely to survive. I can't fit my head around this. It just seems like an intellectually dishonest way of throwing them out. But it's a difficult decision that I haven't had to face personally yet.
Posted by: Loona at Feb 6, 2007 9:08:42 AM
My IVF clinic is a Belgian hospital unrestrained by the sensitivity demands I gather U.S. clinics work with. For example, I have often waited to have my veins emptied with women who have at least two toddlers (each) running around and turning off the lights in the waiting room. (Actually I have sometimes wondered if the fertility center encourages these women to bring their children, since it makes those of us without any or without multiple offspring ever so slightly relieved not to have those ones....) But the pointiest reminder of the hospital's dubious diplomacy is the letter that is routinely sent to patients a few weeks after an IVF cycle, confirming that "for the moment, you have ____ frozen embryo(s)." I have now received my sixth and last letter with a familiar "none" penned in. I considered wallpapering our bathroom with letters, so as better to wallow while whiling away the morn. But could I instead donate them to your archive of Thanks-For-Sharing IVF materials? You know, the collection including your letter from Cornell (the change of address unknown card) and all your other fantastic and fabricated infertile artifacts? I'm sure it would for a great traveling exhibit....
Posted by: swisschard at Feb 6, 2007 9:12:33 AM
Well I have three uses. 1) another couple, if I can't have any children at least some of our genes will be out there somewhere, 2) research, my husband does stem cell research for a living so we would definitely donate to research, 3) save some for our family, I'm not talking about children, I'm talking about the stem cell therapies of the future. A rare opportunity for infertiles, maybe you can't have a kid, but you can save your mother from lymphoma. Now if we can only make enough to actually get pregnant and have leftovers, I can only dream.
Posted by: Kelly at Feb 6, 2007 10:56:18 AM
We too toiled with what to do with our leftover embroys. We don't even know yet IF we'll have any leftover, but if we do, we're donating them to research. We already had to sign our consent forms for that.
It is a rare opportunity swisschard, you may not be able to have a baby, you may be able to...but the ones that are leftover that you don't transfer may be able to help cure Alzhiemer's or a cancer or something else. Just knowing that I may be able to help someone, somewhere, some how, makes me feel a little better.
Posted by: bhgirl70 at Feb 6, 2007 1:40:43 PM
right on, akeeyu!
Posted by: kristylynne at Feb 6, 2007 3:21:47 PM
I wish I had the problem of deciding what to do with extra embryos. Our first donor egg cycle ended in miscarriage and the only frozen embryo that survived the thaw is sleeping on the couch next to me. We had always said we'd donate any leftovers we had to research, but now that I have a baby it all seems a bit more murky. As desperately as I'd love to have another child, part of me is relieved I won't have to make that decision.
Of course, a new grill is always a good option.
Posted by: Anna at Feb 6, 2007 4:38:47 PM
I really should not open your blog in the office. I laughed so loud that the whole office got quiet and now everyone must be thinking I am crazy.
Thank you so much for putting me in such an embarrasing position.
Posted by: Angel at Feb 6, 2007 4:52:08 PM
Oh and by the way I have 4 frozen left. No luck with fresh but guess what - just found out my husband has been in the closet all these years and now he wants to come out. Now. 15 years of marriage.Now.
Posted by: Angel at Feb 6, 2007 4:58:05 PM
Please see Aurelia's post on this embryo give away issue. She really has a good point as well as the other adoptees who comment hear. For the first time, I think you are way way off here, but its your blog and I am glad you openned up the issue for discussion.
Posted by: Nicole at Feb 6, 2007 4:59:51 PM
Please see Aurelia's post on this embryo give away issue. She really has a good point as well as the other adoptees who comment here. For the first time, I think you are way way off here, but its your blog and I am glad you openned up the issue for discussion.
Posted by: Nicole at Feb 6, 2007 5:00:14 PM
Yuck! Too far!
Posted by: Janine at Feb 6, 2007 5:54:03 PM
I thought the post was kind of yuck also.
Posted by: Michelle at Feb 6, 2007 6:28:44 PM
Angel...gobsmacked.
What a situation. You must be reeling.
Posted by: Simone at Feb 6, 2007 7:13:42 PM
Before we embarked on IVF I thought I'd have no problem donating the extras to another couple but DH said no way. So we agreed that donating to research would be fine. Now that we've have 2 babies via IVF (and have 3 embryos on ice) I have to say I can't imagine donating them at all. I suppose it's partly because we're thinking of having a 3rd and it's an easy way out of the quandry: try a thaw cycle and if it works, great; otherwise we're done. And we only have enough for 1 more try.
But it's also partly that I've come to realize what a miracle it all is and how even at 6 weeks, you can (if you're very lucky!) see that tiny heartbeat and know it's a little human in the making. And I'm about as pro-choice as they come. I guess I've come to look at embryos as a lot closer to babies than I ever did before.
But I guess if I had a dozen extras, I'd have to reconsider.
Posted by: Mary at Feb 6, 2007 9:59:00 PM
This is my first visit here, but it won't be my last. What a verrrrrry clever post. I appreciate that you stomped all over a subject so many folks would find verboten.
Posted by: Jocelyn at Feb 6, 2007 11:19:44 PM
I currently have about 15 decent ones on ice from a DE cycle last October. We had talked about offering them to DH's brother & SIL, also infertile. We haven't found success yet and we've been through two fresh DE cycles and one FET. If this next FET doesn't work then I'll have to start thinking abut the options since we'll be throwing up our hands and running shrieking into the hills.
Posted by: Karen2248 at Feb 6, 2007 11:37:43 PM
