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Those who decide to undergo IVF may be confronted with the question of whether to transfer additional embryos for adoption. For some, it is giving infertile couples a chance to make their dreams about a child come true, for others, giving their own offspring to strangers.
When performing in vitro fertilization, a few eggs are fertilized just in case, and a maximum of two embryos are implanted. The rest are frozen for later use. What to do with them when the couple do not want to have more children and cannot afford to cover the costs of their storage?
Then the decision is most often made to transfer them for adoption to another infertile couple. – It’s a tough decision. When I think that someday somewhere on the street I will see a child similar to mine and it will look into my eyes as if it were asking why you let my brother or sister into your house and you did not want me, I feel faint – says preparing for fertilization in vitro Agata.
Prenatal adoption
In Poland, it is possible to fertilize with the sperm of a foreign donor, use by a couple their own sperm and an egg from a foreign woman, and adopt an embryo left by another couple in the clinic. Most often, parents who have already had a child thanks to IVF and do not plan any more offspring, donate their embryos for adoption. They are stored in liquid nitrogen at – 196 degrees C. This can take a long time. A newborn was born after implanting a frozen embryo nineteen years earlier. At the nOvum Infertility Treatment Clinic in Warsaw, the patient gave birth to a child after implanting her embryo, which had been stored for eleven years.
A woman who wants to adopt an embryo must take the appropriate medications in advance to prepare the uterus for pregnancy. Embryo transfer is painless, it is done on the gynecological chair. The effectiveness of this method varies between 20 and 30%. However, for many couples whose female and male factors fail, this is the only chance to fulfill their dreams of pregnancy and having a baby.
Donor problem
Many women feel that it is better to submit an embryo for adoption than wait for it to be destroyed. Remembering the suffering they faced while treating infertility, they want to give other couples a wonderful gift. Such donation is not possible in all countries in Europe. This is prohibited by law in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Sweden. Such an adoption is associated with certain problems. For example, every medical interview begins with a question about hereditary diseases in the family. Parents who have adopted the embryo will not be able to answer them. It may also be a problem to meet genetic siblings who, without knowing it, will conceive a child. That is why open donation was introduced in Great Britain. When a child turns 18, he or she can find out if his conception was the result of assisted reproduction and who the genetic parents are. Meanwhile, most couples in Poland who donate embryos for adoption prefer to remain anonymous. – Honestly speaking, I do not know if we would decide to put the embryos up for adoption if we were to meet in the future. What to say to the child in this situation? – women preparing for IVF are wondering on the internet forum. Others write that they want to leave their bearings if the child is looking for them or if there is a medical need. – I would tell my child that because I loved him before he was born, I decided that he would live, although I could not give birth to him – wrote one of the forum users.
Recipient problem
More and more women give birth to children who are conceived from the sperm and egg of complete strangers. Such mothers and their partners are wondering whether to tell their children that they have other genetic parents. – I am a mother of just such a baby and I have never felt that it is not mine. He is lovable and wonderful and we probably won’t tell him that he is not our biological child. After all, I wore it under my heart for 9 long months and I gave birth to it. Why destroy his world with such truth? After all, this child does not even have the possibility of finding a biological donor – one of the women wrote on the forum.
Anna Krawczak, head of the Association for Infertility Treatment and Adoption Support Our Stork says that the hysteria surrounding prenatal adoption as a special trauma, which, when revealed, will destroy the child’s life, is irrational. – Many people assume that learning the truth is to be a separate event. Meanwhile, it is a process. The truth should accompany the family from the beginning. Then there is no revealing of secrets, there is a natural family situation. It is worse if the child gets to know her when it turns out that a transplant or a genetic history of diseases in the family is needed. Then he is traumatized because his parents lied to him for so long – he adds. However, most fertility doctors advise their patients to forget that they have adopted an embryo, treat the baby as if it were their own, and never tell them about their genetic parents. – To be honest, if I were a recipient and heard the words about other parents from the doctor, I would not tell my child about donation. A person becomes a parent in order to be a parent, not to abdicate in favor of strangers after 18 years. It’s just that these words are, of course, nonsense. A child has only one pair of parents who raise and love it. In addition to them, it may also have a donor or donors. And this terminological distinction is obvious to children and parents. Polish doctors have apparently not matured for him yet – says Krawczak.
Child problem
Meanwhile, organizations of children born through prenatal adoption are emerging in Europe, demanding access to knowledge about their origins. – Children in organizations fighting for the right to know about their genetic parents are furious. They do not mean that they do not know the identity of the donors, but about something much deeper, which happened even earlier: invalidating their future rights to know their own identity and disregarding their voice – explains the head of the Nasz stork association. In 2011, the American Forbes published a letter by Susan Kane conceived thanks to donation of gametes, who is the mother of two children also born thanks to donation. —Years of research into social adoption have taught us that keeping this fact a secret harms the adoptive family. They also taught us that late learning on this subject ruins children’s confidence in their parents, she wrote. At the same time, she emphasized that for children conceived thanks to gamete donation, genes are important and they do not want to be cut off from their genetic heritage. Anna Krawczak cites research by Elizabeth Marquardt from the Institute for American Values conducted among children conceived thanks to donation of gametes. Even though as many as 75% of them wanted to know the method of conception, only 15% decided to meet personally with DNA donors. However, as many as 80% wanted contact with potential siblings. According to Krawczak, the siblings share the same fate as them. Hence the desire to contact you. Michał Damski, vice-president of the Nasz Stocian Association, tells about a couple who learned that their daughter, born as a result of prenatal adoption, has biological siblings. The families decided to meet on the occasion of the children’s birthday and it is not a trauma for anyone.
Embryo adoption is not for everyone
– Not everyone is fit to be a gamete or embryo donor or recipient. Therefore, before deciding on prenatal adoption, it is worth consulting a psychologist – advises Anna Krawczak. She emphasizes that the association does not force parents to reveal the truth to their children about how they conceived. – We show that there is such a possibility and we tell you how to do it. At the same time, we are aware that there are people who will never decide to take this step – he explains. On the website www.powiedziecirozmawiac.pl, the association has provided guides on how to pass this information on to children.
Polish law does not regulate these issues because we do not have any law on gamete and embryo donation. Meanwhile, in Europe, court judgments have already passed granting children born as a result of them the right to know the identity of donors, despite the fact that they have concluded agreements with clinics guaranteeing their anonymity.