Embryo Donation

The Abraham Center of Life, LLC is an advertising service that contracts with full service embryo donation services to locate families for excess embryos. Although we do not work directly with the public, we can refer you to a full service agency that can help you.

What is embryo donation ?
  It is estimated that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000 "frozen embryos" which are currently stored in cryo banks throughout the United States. These embryos are a result of couples and singles that have turned to the medical procedure of invitrofertilization to assist them in creating their families. Some of these embryos are linked genetically to those that have "created" them;

 

others have been created via egg donors and/or sperm donors and are not the biological offspring of the recipient parents. During the invitro process, the woman whose ovums are to be used for the process will be given ovary stimulating medications which will assist the ovaries in creating multiple eggs. The average number of eggs created is 8-12, however it is not uncommon for a woman to produce 25-30 !!These eggs are then fertilized with the sperm of a donor or the partner of the recipient. In order to avoid dangerous multiple births, a conscientious clinic will generally not implant more than 2 or 3 embryos in the recipient at a time. The remaining embryos are then frozen and , in the case that the recipients don't get pregnant during that cycle, or desire to have more children later, can be implanted at a later date. The chances of pregnancy are the greatest using this "fresh cycle" procedure, and are lessened drastically after they have been frozen.

Prior to undergoing IVF, the clinic that the infertile family has procured
for the procedure will generally have them fill out a form which will
instruct the clinic and cryo bank as to how the "leftover" embryos are to be disposed of after their initial IVF procedure has been done. Usually, this form will give instructions that they are to be frozen for a certain period of time, but that after so many years that they can either be destroyed or donated to science labs.


I have heard of embryo adoption, is this the same thing?


 

Although there are other services that refer to the donation process as an "adoption", we at The Abraham Center of Life, Inc. strongly prefer the term donation for this procedure for multiple reasons.

Firstly, the services that are offering donations as "adoptions" are licensed adoption agencies that are charging "adoptive" families fees for home studies and other legally unnecessary services, so it is easy to see why it would be in an agency's best interests to label this procedure as an "adoption". There are no laws in any states that requires a home study or any licensed adoption agency involvement of any kind.

  



Secondly, we feel that it is unfair that the "creator" of the embryos can use an egg donor and donor sperm to create the embryos, and have no criteria or third parties to be "approved" by; yet the family willing to undergo implantation of those same embryos after freezing must come under third party scrutiny.


Who should consider embryo donation?


  Embryo donation is an option for couples who want to share a pregnancy experience and have neither eggs nor sperm to contribute to that process, and for single women desiring a pregnancy who do not have a designated sperm donor and are unable to use their own eggs. It is also an option for couples in which only one member is infertile but who want to have an equal genetic (i.e. non-genetic) relationship to their child. Embryo donation is appealing to couples who have problems with the idea of intentionally creating children/embryos to adopt.

 


What are my chances of getting pregnant via frozen embryo donation?
 

The professionals have come up with varying numbers in response to this question. Their numbers, you must remember, are representative of ALL frozen embryos; and, as we know, some are going to be more viable than others based on certain criteria. Most couples that turn to IVF in the first place are there because of the inability to conceive; this could be due to numerous factors including ,but not limited to, age and genetics. Therefore, the chances of their own genetic embryos being viable may not be as good as sperm and egg donors that are both in their twenties that both have produced healthy offspring already.

Although professionals are quoting the general rate of pregnancy via frozen embryo donation overall at about 30%, these figures are as high as 45% (based on implantation of 4 frozen-thawed embryos) via selective donation.

 

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