I personally havent done any of this but a friend told me of Snowflake adoptions and I thought what a wonderful idea. From what I hear they are a awsome place to go thru. Good luck to anything you do to make your dreams of a family come true. I know it is very long but I added what I read. Also you should be able to type Snowflake Embreyo Adoptions and other links should come up.
'Snowflake' babies give infertile couples another option
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By Allison M. Heinrichs
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 5, 2005
Some snowflakes don't melt.
These "snowflakes" -- frozen human embryos -- collect in clinics, hospitals and storage facilities. And they are at the center of a hot debate in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. House passed legislation last month that would expand the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research. The measure is now before the U.S. Senate.
At the heart of the debate is whether embryos -- which contain about eight cells -- constitute life. Religious leaders differ on the issue.
"Judaism has a principle -- preservation of life -- that we place above all else. We believe that the preservation of life is primary," he said Rabbi Avi Friedman of the Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill. "Clearly in this case, (the embryo) is not a human, and if it is to be discarded, it should certainly be used to save a life."
The Catholic Church believes the embryos are living beings. It strongly opposes embryonic stem cell research, said Susan Rauscher, secretary for pastoral concerns with the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese.
"It's pretty simple -- from the moment that that cell divides, you've got a human life, and we must protect that human life," Rauscher said.
The church also opposes in vitro fertilization, the process of fertilizing eggs outside the womb. But the church has not taken a stance on embryo donation for adoption other than protecting embryos, she said.
In Pittsburgh, most people either save their embryos with the intention of building a future family or have them thawed and discarded when their families are complete, said representatives of local fertility centers. The centers would not provide numbers of couples who undergo fertility treatments, nor would they provide numbers of embryos stored there.
One Westmoreland County couple decided to donate their extra embryos last year after having triplets through in vitro fertilization. The couple, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said if they'd only had one child, they would have considered using their extra embryos. But with three active toddlers, they had their hands full.
However, that left four frozen embryos and one big decision.
"We knew we didn't want to discard them because of the potential for children, whether they be ours or somebody else's," said the mother.
Because somebody donated sperm to create their children, she said they wanted to return the favor by helping another infertile couple. They are in the process of transferring their embryos to a Virginia couple.
If they couldn't have donated the embryos to another couple, they would have given them to research, she said.
"We just didn't want to discard them," the woman said.
Nationwide, 400,000 frozen embryos -- which some people call snowflake babies because, like snowflakes, each frozen embryo is unique -- rest in cryogenic freezers, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
About 50,000 embryos are "leftovers" -- unused by the parents who created them. These embryos can be used for research, donated to another couple, destroyed or kept on ice indefinitely, like a permanently frozen snowflake.
Since Dr. Scott Kauma became the clinical program director of the Jones Institute at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Bloomfield in 2003, not one local couple he has worked with has chosen to donate their embryos to research or to another couple. Instead they opted to discard any unused embryos.
"Over my career, I've only had a handful of couples that have decided to release their embryos for adoption," said Kauma, who has been involved in reproductive health since 1986.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Magee-Womens Hospital in Oakland also hasn't had anyone select donation, said UPMC spokeswoman Michele Baum. Most people there choose to keep the embryos frozen indefinitely. The rest have them discarded.
In Penn Hills-based Reproductive Health Service's five-year history, only one or two couples have given their embryos to other couples, and nobody has donated to research, said Dr. Carolyn Kubik, the clinic's co-owner.
"For the most part, couples who have experienced infertility, though they are very anxious to help other couples be as successful as they are, feel very attached to their embryos," Kubik said.
If a couple doesn't use all of their embryos, they usually choose to destroy them she said, Storage, which costs about $400 a year, can get expensive, she said.
Couples who choose to adopt already fertilized embryos usually pay from $2,000 to $5,000 to have genetic tests and disease screenings done and then to have the embryos thawed and implanted. The fee is considerably less than undergoing in vitro fertilization, which runs around $10,000 a try, or attempt infant adoption, which can cost more than $20,000.
However, babies are born in only about 20 percent of embryo adoptions from young, healthy women because thawing causes stress to the embryo. Usually the frozen embryos are also of a lower quality because the genetic parents have used the best embryos to attempt a pregnancy.
Most states, including Pennsylvania, have no laws regarding embryos and their potential for adoption.
"It used to be easy to know who your mother is, but science has made that, in some cases, unclear," said Harry Gruener, a University of Pittsburgh professor of family law. "It's a strange, strange situation, and the legal response is all tied up in a lot of emotionally charged rhetoric, and it should be. People have strong feelings about this."
Gruener serves on a recently formed 13-member task force charged with recommending laws for Pennsylvania regarding, among other issues, embryo adoption, surrogacy, egg donation, embryo ownership after divorce, and determining whether embryos are property or children.
To avoid legal battles and to remain impartial, Reproductive Health Services does not actually help couples make donations or advise them about which options might be best for them. Instead, it gives patients information on organizations that can help them with donation either to research or another couple, Kubik said. In the meantime, embryos from the clinic needing storage are sent to ReproTech Ltd., in Minnesota.
At ReproTech, most people decide to destroy their excess embryos, but of those that don't, donation to research is the most popular choice, said Russ Bierbaum, the facility's president. Most people select research because they are uncomfortable knowing that another couple could raise their genetic children, but want their embryos used for something, he said.
Bierbaum said he supports legislation to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that the U.S. House passed on May 24.
"The bottom line is, people need this option, and they've been very thankful to have it," Bierbaum said.
President Bush has promised to veto the measure because it crosses "a critical ethical line." He announced the veto threat during a photo opportunity at the White House with the families of several snowflake children.
The president banned federal funding for new embryonic stem cell experiments soon after he took office, although he allowed researchers to continue studying embryonic stem cell lines already in existence.
The division over the use of embryonic stem cells extends to Pennsylvania's two Republican U.S. senators.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Philadelphia, sponsor of the Senate version of the House bill, has vowed to muster enough votes to override a presidential veto. Specter, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, said he supports embryonic stem cell research because of the potential to cure life-threatening diseases.
Sen. Rick Santorum of Penn Hills, firmly opposes destroying embryos and said he would vote against legislation permitting that destruction.
"I believe that there may or may not be some promise with embryonic stem cell research, but what I do know is that the only way we do know of to get (embryonic) stem cells is ethically troubling because you're destroying human life," Santorum said.
He is pursuing legislation to keep fertility clinics from creating excess embryos and said already-existing embryos that are not donated to other couples should be kept frozen and allowed to eventually die a "natural death."
In May, Santorum met with several families who traveled to Washington with their snowflake babies to protest the House bill. Among the families who made the trip were Blacklick, Ohio residents Janet and Kevin Mason and their 11-month-old twins, Caleb and Jordan.
The twins, whose genetic parents live in Minnesota, were frozen for six years before they were placed in Janet Mason's uterus. The couple met with congressmen to increase awareness of embryo donation for adoption. They also spoke against destroying embryos for research.
"As much as we're out there with our children and their history and story, every day there's people that don't know about" embryo adoption, Janet Mason said, adding that, although she is a physician, she wasn't aware of the option until she heard about it on a Christian radio broadcast.
"A lot of politicians don't understand that this is an option; they were calling them 'leftovers,'" she said. "My twins are not leftovers. They were embryos that didn't have a place."
Allison M. Heinrichs can be reached at
aheinrichs@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5607.
Embryo adoption 
