06-12-2012, 08:38 PM
(06-12-2012, 08:01 PM)pspence Wrote: User, what do the majority of others do in your situation? Are most of the time they destroyed? Seems so sad if that's true. I have read in cases where they're involved in custody disputes....where the wife wants them and the x says no....how about the case where the Dr put the wrong one in a woman and she carried it to term for its bio parents...I'm not sure I could have been so generous..
I'd have to google it, but my guess would be, when forced to make a decision, most are destroyed, second donated to science and third, adopted out. But maybe the last two are reversed. I'm not sure.
Yes, there are a myriad of lawsuits surrounding embryos and such. My son looked Hispanic when he was first born; my husband and I both thought for a while that maybe the doctor had screwed up but eventually he started to resemble us.
One thing I've learned from the paperwork I received today is once we give them up, the adoptive family can either use them (or not) so we lose all control as to whether or not all 4 are ultimately given a chance. If you have 3 or less, you don't have the option to donate.
Nowadays, fertility centers charge upwards of $200-$300 a month to store the embryos so I think people are making decisions much more quickly. When I had my kids, we paid a one-time fee of $400 (I think) and they've been there for 13 years. People like us are surely pissing off the fertility clinics. Legally, I could probably demand that they keep them indefinitely because of our original contract but we decided it's time for us to make a decision regardless.
Babies have been born from embryos frozen up to 20 years. There's some debate about whether the viability decreases with age.
It's all kind of interesting but I wish I was talking about someone else's embryos.