Couples give up frozen embryos for 'adoption'

Rebecca and Chris Henderson of Hampton, Va., finally had the children they always wanted: Twins through in vitro fertilization after more than a decade of heartbreak, then a "miracle baby" five years later with no intervention.

But they had 11 frozen embryos left after twins Abigail and Rachele were born. They paid a few hundred dollars a year to keep them frozen and their options open until Johanna was born three years ago.

They weren't comfortable donating their embryos for scientific research or destroying them; they believe life begins at conception.

So the Hendersons legally signed them over to Dan and Kelli Gassman of Salem, Ore. — another Christian couple a lot like them who still struggled with fertility problems.

"We have been blessed with three when we didn't think we'd have one, so, what kind of awesome thing is it to bless another couple and let them experience the same kind of joy we did?" says Becky Henderson.

Embryo donation has been slowly growing in recent years. Most who choose that option do so for religious or ideological reasons, says Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

While the term embryo adoption is favored by those who believe life begins at conception, the medical group has issued an ethics policy stating that the procedure should be called donation not adoption, because embryos are not children.

"We are in favor of having people have lots of options as they build their family," Tipton says. But "I do think it's important to recognize their ideological motivations."

Of the two major non-profits offering the option,Snowflakes Embryo Adoption program, part of the non-profit Nightlight Christian Adoptions of Orange County, Calif., recently had its 400th live birth; the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tenn., expects its 500th in March.

Many families also work with their own local fertility clinics to find donations without using one of these two organizations, Tipton says.

In part, interest is increasing as conventional adoption gets tougher, says Kimberly Tyson, marketing and program director for of Nightlight. International adoptions have been drying up, teen pregnancy rates continue to fall, and having children out of wedlock has become socially acceptable, reducing the numbers of babies available for adoption.

Most donated embryos come from families like the Hendersons, who have extra embryos after completing assisted fertility, Tyson says.

In one 2011 study of 1,262 patients who froze embryos, only about 6% donated them for other couples to use; 19% discarded them and 3% donated them for scientific research. The study was in Fertility and Sterility, a journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

About 600,000 frozen embryos are now being stored around the country as a result of in vitro fertilization efforts, Tyson says. But just a fraction of those are viable and available — about 2%, one 2003 study suggests.

The procedure for implanting a donated embryo is no different than the one used in fertility treatments with biological parents, in which an embryo is inserted into a uterus that has been primed with hormones, says Lawrence Grunfeld, an associate clinical professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.

Legally, embryos are treated as a commodity, so ownership is clear and biological parents can't change their minds, as can happen with conventional adoptions.

Another advantage is cost. Embryo donation runs about half the cost of traditional in vitro fertilization with a donor egg; it can still cost $15,000 for the transfer and agency fee, says Tyson.

Embryo donation programs insist that their track record is even better than traditional in vitro — with a 47% success rate compared with 37% for traditional in vitro, says Jeffrey Keenan, medical director of the National Embryo Donation Center.

But it still makes sense to ensure that the genetic parents are under 35, when the chances of healthy embryos are highest, says Grunfeld. The freezing technology also got better in 2010, so embryos frozen after that are likely to have a higher success rate, he adds.

Both the National Embryo Donation Center and Snowflakes act like dating services to connect donors with would-be parents. They require extensive medical histories and let donors and recipients to decide if they want an "open adoption" with contact between families or a closed one.

Both the Gassmans and Hendersons say the match has worked wonderfully for them.

"It was kind of like a joining of hearts," Kelli Gassman says.

The Gassmans had a son, Trevor, in December 2012. They thawed three more embryos the following July, and then Kelli quickly became pregnant with Aubrey, born in March 2014.

When asked whether the arrangement felt odd, Kelli and Dan say no.

But Chris Henderson concedes the process is unusual. His twins and the Gassmans' children were conceived at the same time, which makes them essentially quadruplets, though born at three different times to two different sets of parents. "How do you process that?" he says.

The hardest thing has been giving up control — knowing that the embryos that came out of your body will be raised by someone making different decisions than you did.

"Eventually, they're going to make decisions that don't match up with the way we'd do it, but we just have to understand," Chris says.

Both couples decided on an open relationship so their kids could know their genetic siblings.

"Having an open adoption with communication helps you get over the fears and the doubts," Becky Henderson says. "The what-ifs? It helps get beyond that."

The Henderson twins, now 8, have met Trevor and know he's their biological brother. They have a "sibling" book with his and Aubrey's pictures, and the children spend time together on Facebook and Skype.

With their family now complete, Kelli and Dan Gassman recently returned the remaining embryos. The Hendersons have already signed off on a family they think would be a good match. They're waiting now to hear back.

"We are much more comfortable the second time around," Becky Henderson says.