Ivf

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hemberson

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Please help me out here…I am very blessed with 2 children we conceived with no problems. Since then, I have suffered multiple miscarriages and ectopics, resulting in the loss of many pregnancies. For the past few years, we have been told IVF is our only option. Knowing it was against the church, we didnt even think about it. This past year, after my last loss I realized that the only way we could even conceive would probably be through IVF. We so desire a big family…after prayer and much thought, we peacefully opted to attempt one round of minimal stimulation where they hoped to get a few eggs and we said we would implant 2. I knew deep down that we may have excess embryos, but wasnt too concerned, thinking that probably wouldnt happen and we wouldnt have to make that decision. I had no problem with the procedure, just didnt want to have leftover embryos. Well, we are midway through and it looks like we will ahev leftover embryos. I want to be excited and feel like God’s hand is upon us and yet I am fearing the worst as I will probably have embryos that I either need to donate to others, to science or dispose of, which I refuse to do. I cant turn back, but now I wonder what do I do? I am scared…and up until the other day I felt so peaceful and felt so many prayers. We go in for the transfer of 2 embryos on Sunday and I keep thinking these may be the new additions to the family…I am not upset we did this, I just thought for sure we wouldnt have so many embryos left. Please share thoughts, advice…
 
I feel at a loss for what to say here.

On one hand, I wish you success this Sunday, and I hope that those two babies will survive long enough to be born. But you also have other babies! How does one decided that the two you implant should live- while the others die or be handed off to other parents?

I understand your desire to have a larger family- but what about adoption? There are hundreds of thousands of children out there needing homes. Now you created a few more- they just haven’t been born yet.

Truly, I do understand your situation. And it *seems *silly that God placed this procreative restriction on us. It seems cruel that there are people enjoying the product of IVF (their born children), but what about the children they destroyed, or are in a frozen limbo?

I pray that you do not have those other children destroyed.

I pray you give them life, and never attempt IVF again.

May God be with you and every member of your family.
 
Please go to EWTN.com, highlight Faith, then Catholic Q&A, then click on Ask a new question. Post your question under the Pro-Life Issues forum. This is a complicated situation and the person there will probably be better equipped to handle it and/or direct you to who can help you.
 
This is a very serious matter.

You have ignored the church’s teachings on IVF already. You have participated in clinical, scientific creation of new human life and deprived these children of yours of a fundamental human right: the right to be the result of God’s own process of mutually self-giving conjugal love between a man and wife. Protest all you like, your children were created by scientists, not your love act. For the sake of your souls, you NEED to get a good priest to give you spiritual direction and help you make a proper and informed confession.

That said, the sin is done and the children are innocent of it. You should avoid the clinical word embryo. What you have is an unknown number of BABIES currently living in a petrie dish somewhere. You are now responsible for them ALL. They are ALL your children.

Morally, you may NOT destroy them or donate them for monsterous experimentation. Would you do that with any of your other children?

The most moral action you can do now is to eventually have all of them implanted in your womb. Perhaps three at a time? Yes, this will probably financially ruin you, depending on how many there are. But you can no more neglect these children of yours now than you can the ones already living at home with you! Would you kill one of THEM if times got financially tight?

I suppose you could give them up for adoption, but it will be YOUR responsibility to ensure that they actually are adopted by people who will not attempt to implant several, then purposely kill the ‘excess’ number of babies that successfully implant.

On the probably sincere advice of misguided people, you have opened a horrible pandora’s box. Please surround yourself with people who will give you sound catholic advice. Pray for guidance. And forgiveness.

I’ll pray for you too.
 
By the way, you ARE treading now in some uncharted waters. SOME in the church believe you are morally prohibited from implanting your children even now. I take the side desribed above, but I make no claim of infallibility!

See this article: catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0201fea5.asp
 
Coming from someone who has been in that “pandora’s box”, here’s my 2 cents…

I second the advice to talk to your priest and go to confession. IVF is a grave sin, it needs to be confessed, it is not the way God intended for our children to be conceived. The priest should be able to give you some direction. When I did my IVF 13yrs.ago I had no idea where the Church stood on this issue, nor did I even think of finding out, we just wanted a baby and that was all that mattered. The kids turned 5yrs .old, and through God’s grace, He showed me the beauty of our Faith, when I found out IVF was wrong, God was gentle with me, I never thought the kids were wrong(as so many women think if they admit the IVF is wrong), I knew the way they were conceived was wrong, like babies who are conceived out of wedlock, God does not intend for babies to be conceived out of wedlock either.

I see that you are doing the IVF tomorrow, it is late Saturday night here, I’ll keep you in my prayers so that God’s will be done. He is in control! Medicine can only do so much, the fact is if God wants those little ones to implant, grow and be born, they will be! Trust in God, He loves you and those little ones!

Dawn
 
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hemberson:
Please help me out here…I am very blessed with 2 children we conceived with no problems. Since then, I have suffered multiple miscarriages and ectopics, resulting in the loss of many pregnancies. For the past few years, we have been told IVF is our only option. Knowing it was against the church, we didnt even think about it. This past year, after my last loss I realized that the only way we could even conceive would probably be through IVF. We so desire a big family…after prayer and much thought, we peacefully opted to attempt one round of minimal stimulation where they hoped to get a few eggs and we said we would implant 2. I knew deep down that we may have excess embryos, but wasnt too concerned, thinking that probably wouldnt happen and we wouldnt have to make that decision. I had no problem with the procedure, just didnt want to have leftover embryos. Well, we are midway through and it looks like we will ahev leftover embryos. I want to be excited and feel like God’s hand is upon us and yet I am fearing the worst as I will probably have embryos that I either need to donate to others, to science or dispose of, which I refuse to do. I cant turn back, but now I wonder what do I do? I am scared…and up until the other day I felt so peaceful and felt so many prayers. We go in for the transfer of 2 embryos on Sunday and I keep thinking these may be the new additions to the family…I am not upset we did this, I just thought for sure we wouldnt have so many embryos left. Please share thoughts, advice…
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I think you need to understand the difference between what you want and what God gives. Nobody has a right to a big family. Children are gifts from God. If you only had two children, these are the manifestation of the Father’s infinite generosity for you. I am sorry that you had so many miscarriages. That’s very sad and tragic. But there would be more tragedy if these embryos are destroyed. I think you should bear the embryos that you have allowed to be fertilized and raise them since you are their mother. They are your children.

Most importantly, understand that God brings good out of evil. In no way do your children have less human dignity because of the way they were conceived. You should repent of your sin, do everything you can to save the lives of the so-called “leftover” embryos, and understand that these children are still gifts from God – He has allowed them to be created in evil to bring greater good. The fact of the matter is, they would not exist if God had not allowed it. Resist also the temptation to rationalize the evil of in-vitro fertilization because of the joy you feel after you give birth. The goodness of your love for the child does not justify the means.

I will keep you in my prayers. Please see a priest and confess your sins so that you may be healed of your sins and be able to deal with your guilt.

God bless and congrats on your new additions!
 
Perhaps you should just be happy with the two you have. I have no children and can’t get pregnant except through IVF. Am I going to go against the Church just so I can get pregnant through a route that isn’t touched by God? No. Consider yourselves blessed and try not to gripe about the fact that you wish you could have a big family. Some of us can’t even have one.

I hope you know that being greedy is a sin and going through with IVF is a grave sin.
 
I know this may cause more problems in the future, but I’ve thought and thought about what the most moral thing to do would be. And this is the best I could do.

In order to save those embryos, you could hire a surrogate who is willing to do multiples.

A surrogate is someone who is paid to carry someone else’s child, and deliver them. Surrogates can be expensive, and I DO NOT reccomend them for couples who haven’t actually already done IVF and aren’t in your particular situation. Hiring a surrogate to have your baby IS considered immoral by the Catholic church, however, these babies will die if they are not implanted in SOMEONE, and one woman can only carry so many. If you do go with a surrogate, you will have to decide if you want to keep all those babies or put them up for adoption. What a tangled web!!! Similar to adoption, you could give the babies to another infertile couple, but make sure they are pro-life. Same with the surrogate, if she isn’t totally pro-life you would be just stupid to go with her, because she does have the legal right to kill those babies.

So there we are. There are many listings for surrogates online. Try www.allaboutsurrogacy.com and look at the classifieds.

Also, Some pro-life groups do something called adopting an embryo. I do not know anything about it, so please try to look it up and see if they can help.

I really wish you hadn’t done this. If you had done this and gone with a doctor who was more ethical and wouldn’t have created this many embryos, that would be a step up, but this is just awful. I hope you can take care of all your children now, somehow.
 
Embryo adoption: nightlight.org/snowflakeslanding.asp This is a Christian agency. Please visit and read their information.

I really hope you will not selfishly consider only your own feelings about “knowing that you have a biological child out there somewhere” and consider instead the fact that you will have a dead child and probably several dead children whose lives were never lived because of you if you do not do something.

I know of a very sweet Christian girl who is dealing with having her child adopted out, and I will try to get you in touch with her for support if you do go this route.
 
I would also like to agree with the above poster in saying that another possible route would be to bear these children yourself 3 at a time, and have the embryos that are waiting to be implanted frozen in the meanwhile.

Chances are not at all great that all 3 that are implanted at any given time into your womb will “take”. Even if they implant 3 at a time, you may not become become pregnant, and if you do you will most likely have 1 or 2 babies survive, not triplets. But you shouldn’t feel bad about that as long as from now on you are doing the best you can.

Remember, these are your children now and you are responsible for thier lives.
 
Conciseness can come off as harsh. A few days later, what I intended to be concise sounds harsh.

I sincerely hope that the tone of my post does not turn you off from the ideas presented in it.

Still praying for you in this tough spot!
 
It’s hard not to be harsh when you are horrified by what has happened, but we are here for you.🙂
 
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