The Devastation of Leftover Embryos

Before you do IVF, read this.

If I believe life begins at conception, and I do, there are 9 lives sitting on ice in a freezer that bear my DNA.

When I began the process of IVF, I was desperate to become a mother. Infertility is not part of God’s design, but so it has become part of the fabric of human existence since the Fall.

I’d been a vocal, pro-life advocate since elementary school, but IVF felt like the opposite of abortion. It was life creation, not destruction.

And yet, now we know that more than a million tiny, conceived lives exist in medical freezers and most of them will never see the light of day.

I wish I’d had someone to help me back in 2014, when I started the journey toward motherhood via IVF. Today, I have two healthy, amazing children than were conceived from this decision and I am everyday grateful for this.

However, I have deep anguish at the lives that I haven’t carried, the siblings of my children that they will never meet. The babies I will never know, whose eyes I will not see, whose bodies I will not rock, whose smiles I will not recognize.

I knew IVF could create extra embryos and I prayed that our process would give us exactly the number we wanted to parent: three would be perfect. But I’m not God and I was playing Him — or letting doctors do so at least.

You can’t make an iffy, ethical choice in hopes it will work out as you wish. And it didn’t. Not at all.

At first, I didn’t think a lot of it because I became pregnant and my dreams of motherhood became reality — twice over. It wasn’t until the dust settled on babyhood that I began to consider the “batch” of embryos from which my two children came.

That I began to imagine them side-by-side their siblings, recognizing that they were conceived in the exact same way at the exact same time as the others. That it was by luck these two were chosen — these two who are 2 years apart but came into existence at the same time, just like the others.

It broke my heart, because we could not have more children for reasons I won’t go into. Still, I was comforted by our choice to pursue embryo adoption, giving these embryos to a pro-life organization who would help them find families to raise them. I still felt I had my pro-life bona fidas with this.

Then, I learned something I’d never known before. A baby who is not raised by their biological parents is likely to suffer trauma, identity issues and a host of other emotional issues.

[NOTE: I direct you to the organization Them Before Us and the book by the same name by Katy Faust for all the statistics & realities on this.]

They may ask why we didn’t want them? They may wonder who they look like? They may anguish that they had a mother, father and siblings they didn’t get to meet. Just as an adopted child suffers in this way, so too will any child who begins life as an adopted embryo.

This was new to me. I thought as long as they are raised from birth in a loving family, they’ll be okay. With this new revelation, my heart shattered again. I created life and abandoned it. I am leaving these babies with trauma, abandonment and identity issues. I DID this.

I believe I’ve sinned. I believe I was selfish. I believe I’ve added to destruction in the world. I have asked God’s forgiveness, more than once (though I know that’s not how it works!)

I’ve cried over this situation numerous times and yet…here it will live with me until I die. There are consequences to sinful choices. Even though I didn’t understand the extent of what I was doing, or realize so many embryos could be created in one shot, I wasn’t totally blind to the realities or the truth that life begins at conception and I was playing with fire.

…If these frozen embryos are life, will I meet them in heaven? I have to believe “yes.”

…Am I continuing to sin if I don’t use them myself? I don’t know.

…If they are born one day, will they suffer because of my choices? Will they want to know who I am?

In the last 2 years, I’ve become far more educated about the ethics of reproductive technology and the realities of created and commodified lives. I’ve learned why we should not use donor sperm or eggs to create life, why surrogacy is wrong in nearly every circumstance, and how the money behind Big Fertility and Big Surrogacy is corrupt, unregulated and co-opted human trafficking.

We’ve gotten ourselves into a big mess, friends. And I feel alone. I’ve met only one person who was in my situation, devastated by the number of leftover embryos she couldn’t use. However, that friend had her 4 embyros adopted by one family, who attempted to implant all of them but they failed. So she no longer bears the burdens in real time of those lives and their possibility.

What about me, stuck in limbo, fully believing these embryos are God-created life? They have DNA, eye color, gender, and so much more already pre-determined. These are not “cells” — these are human beings just waiting to live. And I made them. I put them in this purgatory. It feels like the worst thing I’ve ever done, as sinful as abortion in some ways. It feels like blasphemy. It feels like hell to know it in my heart. What kind of mother does this?

There’s so much I have to say about this. And I’ve waited years to feel “processed” or “healed” in some way that I could write about it with more levity, less emotion. But, that will never be the case. I will never have true peace about this because this is an ongoing situation.

I spoke to a dear friend and mentor about all of this yesterday. She encouraged me to spend time fasting and praying, and just laying it out before God. I know that I need to do this in a more significant way than I already have.

As I read the Bible this morning, I noted how when David sinned, he repented and made an alter and got on his knees before God. And this too, I must do.

Many people do not understand my anguish. Some will say, you’re lucky. It worked! Your IVF worked and you had children and there are others going through cyles and cycles of it with heartbreaking failure again and again. Yes, I am lucky to be the mother of my two children. Two things exist together: heartbreak and gratitude.

God works everything together for them that love the Lord. He makes all things new. He has made GOOD out of bad. But I will suffer and I deserve that. And I pray that one day these embryos receive life in a loving family, that they forgive me for what I did, that they come to know Jesus and I meet them one day in heaven. That’s where my head is at right now.

If you’re considering IVF, consider what I’ve written. As one woman put it, as Christians, “Choosing to conceive is choosing to implant.” Do IVF in such a way that you will plan to use all your embryos. Don’t find yourself in my situation, struggling to rectify the pain of frozen children.

If you have questions, inquire! The fertility clinics aren’t your friend in this matter, as they don’t value human life as we do. They are money-making machines. I’m not saying all doctors are like that, but the fact that no one ever discussed the possibility of so many extra embryos with me is shocking.

They say not to write about things if you aren’t healed. But maybe writing is how I start to heal, or at least, I hope it can help someone else.