Determine the fate of the “leftover” embryo.

No one knows exactly how many embryos are frozen in storage tanks, but the number is thought to be between 1 million and 10 million in the US. Some of these embryos have been stored for years or decades. In some cases, intended parents deliberately choose this, choosing to pay hundreds of dollars in fees each year. But in other cases, the clinic has lost contact with the client. Many of these former clients have stopped paying for embryo storage, but without up-to-date consent forms, clinics may be reluctant to destroy them. What if the person comes back and wants to use the embryo? “Most clinics, if they have doubts or doubts or questions, they will make the mistake of holding the embryo and not throwing it away,” said Sigal Klipstein, a reproductive endocrinologist at the InVia Fertility Center in Chicago, who is also the ethics chair. committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “Because it’s like a one-way ticket.” Klipstein thinks one of the reasons why some embryos end up being “left behind” in storage is that the people who created them can’t destroy them. “It’s very difficult for people who want to have a family,” she said. Klipstein said he regularly talks to patients about what to do with leftover embryos. Even people who make decisions with conviction can change their minds, he said. “We all have patients who throw away their embryos and then come back six months or a year later and say: ‘Oh, I wish I had that embryo,'” he said. “Sing [embryos may have been] the best chance for pregnancy.” Those who want to throw away the embryo have a choice. Often, the embryo will only be exposed to air and then thrown away. But some clinics will also offer to transfer at a time or place where the pregnancy is too unsuccessful. This is a “mercy transfer compassion,” as it’s known, may be considered a more “natural” way to dispose of embryos. But it’s not for everyone. Holligan has had several miscarriages and wondered if compassionate transfer might be the same. She wondered if it could also just “insert [her] body and mind through unnecessary stress.” In the end, for Holligan and many others in the same position, the choice remains difficult. baby. and [when people] had this embryo, and she had completed her family plan, she was in a place she couldn’t have imagined.

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