NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Nearly 40 years after America’s first IVF baby was born here in Norfolk, fertility clinics are facing a crisis of abandoned embryos.
Having extra embryos is something most doctors admit they didn’t really think about when IVF was in its infancy
Thousands, up to a million some experts estimate, are frozen in perpetuity with no parents claiming them.
Now doctors are dealing with legal, moral, ethical and financial issues they never imagined.
Dr. Robin Poe-Zeigler with the New Hope Center has dedicated her life to bringing families hope, and making babies, lots and lots of babies.
“It’ll be 23 years in February and there are over 3,500 babies now,” Poe-Zeigler said.
But along the path to making dreams come true, the fertility specialist and others at more than 500 centers across the country have encountered a complication they never saw coming.
“We’re all sitting on these embryos that we don’t know what to do with and we’re afraid to do anything with.”
It’s not clear how many abandoned embryos there are in the U.S. Clinics are not required to report that information.
Of the more than 1,400 stored in the tanks at Dr. Robin’s clinic, about 200 are abandoned.
There are likely many, many more at the Jones Institute for reproductive Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
The Jones Institute was the first place in the country to create an IVF baby. They did not respond to our repeated requests for an interview.
“The irresponsible parents, in my opinion, are the parents that abandon them and do nothing with them and that makes a problem for everyone else,” Poe-Zeigler said.
An embryo is generally considered abandoned if its parents have not paid storage fees for five years and have not responded to phone calls and certified letters.
There are many reasons parents do this. Financial cost is one.
Storage fees for the liquid nitrogen freezer typically run from $500 to $1,000. And then there’s the other cost.
“It is a very emotionally charged, difficult decision to make,” said Rebecca Henderson, who ended up donating her embryos.
Henderson and her husband, Chris, grappled with infertility for 14 years. When they met Dr. Robin, their goal was to get as many embryos as possible. They ended up with 13.
“At the time we had no thoughts about how we would use those embryos down the line,” Henderson said.
When parents can’t or don’t decide, doctors’ hands are tied.
While the American Society for Reproductive Medicine says it would be ethical to discard them after five years, doctors cannot donate them to research or do anything to promote life.
“That would be my dream, that if the embryos have been abandoned that we would at least have the legal rights to donate them to other couples,” Poe-Zeigler said.
The law won’t allow Dr Robin to adopt them out, but their parents can.
“It is the best choice we ever made I cannot express enough how much I would go over and do it 100 times again,” Henderson said.
The Hendersons created a new extended family when they donated their embryos to Dan and Kelli Gassman.
“That is the most priceless gift that anyone has ever given me, other than when Christ died on the cross,” Kelli Gassman said.
Two children, Trevor and Aubrey, are the answer to both parents’ prayers. The couples and their kids are part of each other’s lives by choice.
“At this point the relationship is really like aunt and uncle,” Kelli Gassman said.
Their situation may not be the answer for everyone, but adoption is one option they and Dr. Robin hope more couples will consider.
“So that they’re not in these freezers for 100 years,” Poe-Zeigler said.
Potential lives, suspended in time, until the law catches up with technology.
Some doctors hope lawmakers in the U.S. will follow the lead of Germany and Italy, which allow only a few embryos to be created at a time, thus avoiding extra embryos.
