My partner and I had always envisioned a future filled with children. We frequently discussed our dreams of starting a family, ideally after a few years of marriage. Our plans felt more tangible the night he proposed, turning our hopes into something real.
However, the next day brought a chilling phone call: he had collapsed during a company softball game and was en route to the hospital. The first time I referred to myself as his fiancée was when I rushed to the emergency room. It wasn’t long before a CT scan revealed the unthinkable—cancerous tumors in his brain.
Just ten days after our engagement, we found ourselves in a meeting with his parents and a social worker, discussing the immediate future. He would require chemotherapy and radiation, and as we navigated this new reality, the social worker asked if we were interested in fertility preservation. Before I could fully comprehend the implications, my future mother-in-law immediately responded, “Yes, they definitely want to have kids someday.”
And so it was decided. Over the next week, my fiancé banked the maximum allowable sperm deposits for future use, while I began researching my options. I discovered that freezing eggs had a lower success rate compared to freezing embryos, leading us to seek a fertility clinic to kickstart the process.
Miraculously, he began to recover. By the time our fertility clinic completed the necessary genetic testing and evaluations, our wedding was fast approaching. Just a few months post-nuptials, we decided to try for a baby.
Our first round of fertility treatments resulted in 12 viable eggs, yielding eight embryos. Our fertility specialist implanted two into my uterus and froze the remaining six. We were uncertain if we would ever conceive naturally again, as chemotherapy can inflict lasting damage on rapidly dividing cells, including sperm. This meant that the three sperm deposits my husband made during that tumultuous time could be our sole chance at parenthood.
Fortuitously, our first attempt was successful; both embryos took, and we welcomed beautiful twin girls 35 weeks later. The clinic continued to store our remaining embryos, and each year, they checked in to see if we wanted to keep them. We paid the storage fees, uncertain about expanding our family further, while knowing we had six potential children waiting for us.
Fortunately, my husband’s sperm returned to normal after his treatment. We then conceived our third child naturally, with no need for medical intervention. Once again, the clinic reached out about our frozen embryos, and we made the difficult decision to stop expanding our family. My second pregnancy had been extremely complicated and posed serious risks to my health, making the thought of another pregnancy, even with those viable embryos, too daunting.
However, laws surrounding frozen embryos can be quite restrictive. You cannot simply give them away, and transporting them for research purposes is prohibitively expensive. The easiest option is to have them destroyed, which was an emotionally painful choice. While I don’t equate an embryo with a living person, they represented potential life—part of me and my husband, a fragment of our family.
I still feel a sense of loss when I think about those six embryos that were ultimately discarded. I wish I could have found a way to donate them to couples hoping to start their families. Freezing my eggs or embryos carried more emotional weight than I had anticipated—raising significant philosophical questions that I wish I had explored with others who faced similar situations. For anyone considering this route, it’s crucial to think ahead about what happens to those embryos once you’ve completed your family. Prepare for a bit of grief alongside the joy.
For more insights on fertility treatments and home insemination, check out this excellent resource from March of Dimes. If you’re considering options for conception, you might also find useful information about home insemination kits here. And don’t forget to review guidance on attending concerts while pregnant from the authority on the topic.
Summary
Fertility preservation can be a complex and emotional journey, filled with difficult choices and significant considerations for the future. From the initial decision to freeze embryos or eggs to the emotional weight of what to do with unused embryos, it’s essential for couples to prepare for the entire process and its implications.