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When Does a Life Become a Life?
You go into something like IVF with these blind goals, as I like to call them. Everyone has the same number one goal, to get pregnant. Then you set up these random pit stops along the way to kind of help you get through the journey - how many eggs you hope to develop during stims, the weight you hope to keep off, you will eat healthier, maybe you will cut out caffeine (I praise those who do because that was not happening!). Whether your goals are medically geared or a little more personal, we all start IVF with them.
There is one goal that I was not expecting to struggle with once IVF became successful. I remember after every injection I could literally feel my ovaries grow and stretch. I would lay down and the weight of the eggs was almost too much to handle. I was in pain, I was waddling, I was carrying two softballs full of tiny walnuts around with me every single day. Yet, I prayed and prayed the pain continued because it meant I was making amazing progress. I wanted that number after egg retrieval to make my jaw drop, and it did. The 46 eggs that they collected from my, previously uncooperative, ovaries were 46 chances to create an embaby. If you have been following us then you know we decided to fertilize 24 of those eggs, which resulted in 9 embryos that made it to freeze. Obviously, Nick and I knew we did not want to have 9 kids someday, and we took into consideration that just because we transfer one does not mean it will stick. It did stick. Our little fighter stuck around, grew, and became this active healthy little love inside of me.
What about the rest of the embryos? When does a life become a life worth saving? This is not a pro-life/pro-choice debate, I do not even think this is something people have ever in their life thought about - but why would they? I never expected to struggle with our decision to destroy our leftover embryos, but here I am 6 months blessed with my miracle and I a cannot let go of her siblings. Crazy, right? They are all simply a ball of cells, stored under liquid nitrogen at -321*F, nothing can happen - no biological or physiological activity can happen. They are frozen in time, created the same exact day as their sister yet will be born years apart. They have no heartbeat, no name, no knowledge of life, but they have genders. They have a purpose, they have fought, they are all our babies. So, tell me, how do I call my clinic years down the road and say "I am done having children now you can destroy the rest"?
In 2006, there were an estimated 400,000 frozen embryos across the country. In 2017 the number rose to an estimated 1 million embryos. 8 of those I happily claim, 8 of those do not even know their fate yet and that is terrifying. What are my options? Donate them to someone who struggled as we did, and allow them Gods greatest treasure? Donate them to science, and give researches the ability to constantly learn and better the process? Destroy them, never knowing who they were if one of them could have been the next president or the cure to cancer? Keep them frozen. Keep them in their cold place, paying a storage fee yearly and knowing in the back of my mind that they are there.
This is not something I put even an ounce of thought into until Dallas Rose moved inside me for the first time. When I realized that the tiny microscopic ball of cells that we created, became a person, became our person, I became torn. It is hard not to.
So, here I am rubbing my belly, buying baby items, feeling her kick, laughing about the future with my amazing husband, and yet in the back of my mind in a dark small box is my other embryos and the unknown future of them that sits in the palm of my very shaky hands.
xoxo, ALD