Frozen embryo adoption

[Princess18]

I read a thread in the AAA about “snowflake babies”, basically adopting a baby before it is born and having the embryo transfered to your own uterus. I first heard about this in the Couple-to-Couple League magazine, as it was listed as one of the licit ways for Catholic Couples to deal with infertility.

Anyway, I did a little searching on the web and found this article, discussing the 400,000+ embryos that are currently frozen and likely to not be implanted in the couples that created them.

Souls on Ice

Here was my thought (after the whole “IVF is wrong” one). We as Catholics believe that we are to be open to as many kids as God gives us. Has the whole contraceptive mentality gone so far that even infertile couples want to limit the number of kids they have?

There is a website called snowflakes.org, which acts in a manner similar to a for-profit adoption agency, matching up families with leftover frozen kids with potential couples for a hefty fee. My understanding is that you take legal ownership of ALL of the pair’s remaining embryos. My second thought: if you were one of the people who adopted all of a family’s remaining embryos, would you implant them all (in intervals) and just take what you got?

Let’s say you were picked and the family had eight frozen babies that are now legally yours. Let’s say you implanted two at a time and as a result now had six kids born with two frozen remaining (highly unlikely, but just for discussion’s sake). Maybe you never really thought you’d have more than two and now you’re finding yourself in a tight place financially. Would you feel like you HAD to implant them and give them a shot, now that they are yours?

Before we get going, I just wanted to point out that I am NOT trying to discuss whether the whole idea of adopting uncooked kids is morally right or wrong. The AAA thread stated that it is up to the individual since the Church as not spoken either way. Let’s please stay away from that particular point, okay?

 

[Truly_Beloved]

Let’s say you were picked and the family had eight frozen babies that are now legally yours. Let’s say you implanted two at a time and as a result now had six kids born with two frozen remaining (highly unlikely, but just for discussion’s sake). Maybe you never really thought you’d have more than two and now you’re finding yourself in a tight place financially. Would you feel like you HAD to implant them and give them a shot, now that they are yours?

Yep.

If I really didn’t want 8 kids, I wouldn’t have adopted them. If someone doesn’t want more than 2 children, but they end up having 3 or 4 or 5, it doesn’t give them the right to get rid of any “extras.”

Now, with my personal obstetrical history, I would have to implant 3 the first time around, 3 the second time, and 2 the last time – To reduce the number of c-sections required to birth all 8 babies (I’ve already had one c-sec).

 

[monicatholic]

Has the whole contraceptive mentality gone so far that even infertile couples want to limit the number of kids they have?

many couples aren’t interested in a consistent life ethic. many couples-- infertile or fertile-- consider children their right, making it a foregone conclusion that aspects like how many, how often should be entirely their call.

as for the central matter: if adopting the frozen embryos, is, in fact, a licit choice (i’m not contesting your assertion, it’s just new information to me) i would agree that a couple would have to agree to do as much as possible to bring their entire family of embryos to term.

it would seem that whatever grave reasons a couple would have to avoid pregnancy might apply to un-implanted embryos. maybe more stringent discernment would apply because the embryos already exist as opposed to hypothetical children.

 

[clskier]

I can speak with some experience on what we would do, as my wife and I seriously considered this option. Snowflake was willing to use as part of our matching criteria the number of viable children that would be matched with us. We chose a number based on the quantity of times we were willing to go through the expensive process of implantation. As far as children, we have no limit on how many we want, however we did not want to be responsible for embrios we could not afford to implant.

In the end, we chose traditional adoption based on a few other factors I won’t get into here. Amazingly though, God in his own timing, gave us a biological child just when we started with an adoption agency.

 

[kevinsgirl]

Let’s say you were picked and the family had eight frozen babies that are now legally yours. Let’s say you implanted two at a time and as a result now had six kids born with two frozen remaining (highly unlikely, but just for discussion’s sake). Maybe you never really thought you’d have more than two and now you’re finding yourself in a tight place financially. ** Would you feel like you HAD to implant them and give them a shot, now that they are yours?**

Yes, absolutely…or find another couple to “adopt” them. In my personal case, I would probably do everything possible to have them myself, though, especially if I had other children that would be biologically related to them.

While I strongly, strongly disagree with IVF, I have actually given some thought to adopting this way if we cannot have children because it reminds me a lot of turning the tables on abortion…where you can actually take the beautiful little tiny baby home and give him/her a fighting chance to have a life.

I really wish the Church would make an official ruling on this, though, because I don’t feel totally comfortable doing it without that support.

 

[Teakafrog]

Well, if the main reason IVF is wrong is that lives are created that are then killed, (besides the obvious of creating them by ‘playing God’ and not within the sacrament of marriage), then yes, obviously you would have to at least attempt to bring them all to a healthy birth. Only logical follow through.

But as other posters have already said, it is very expensive for each attempt, and I personally would rather take that money to the adoption agency and know I’m coming home with a child. That’s what we did, and plan to do again when we can afford it.

 

[Challa]

This is actually kind of a false dilemma, because if you get 8 embryos and get pregnant after the first transfer, the remaining embryos TYPICALLY go back (legally speaking) to the donating family. So it isn’t even legally possible for the adoptive couple to make such a decision.

However, I would agree that if the embryos were your responsibility you would be ethically obliged to transfer them all. You agreed to do so when you took them, and any other option would not be morally acceptable.

 

[thomfra]

…because I don’t feel totally comfortable doing it without that support.

Why not?