Frozen Embryos

What if you had twenty blastocysts/early-stage embryos?  Of the twenty, eighteen sit frozen in a fertility clinic.  Two grew into babies who are walking and talking now.  They have brown eyes, light brown hair, fair skin.  They’re both tall.  One is husky.  One is thin.  What if you could still see them clearly in their earliest form up there on the monitor?  A garden of blastocysts like tiny cauliflower blossoms dividing and multiplying in the fight for survival.  Each with its own code, eyes, hair, skin, height, body type, blood type, already determined.  On the screen a needle moves through the garden.  In its wake the blossoms sway.  Who are they, you might wonder.  The needle stops.  It hones in.  Up goes one blastocyst.  Up slides the other.  They disappear from the monitor.  Our babies-to-be have just been chosen by an embryologist.  She walks from the laboratory to the procedure room where I’m lying on a table, holding my husband’s hand, listening to Here Comes The Sun on my iPod.  I wonder who they are, the two traveling the catheter to my uterus.  I wonder who they are, the eighteen left behind.

Each year an invoice arrives in the mail.  Hundreds of dollars are due.  At first, I was convinced we’d birth another baby, so paying the embryo storage fee seemed justified.  I’d been curious to know what a singleton pregnancy was like plus five (kids, that is) felt like a good strong number.  But two open birth adoptions, one twin pregnancy, and four kids later there’s no denying my exhaustion.  I’m an over-scheduled mom, part-time music teacher, and very frustrated writer – none of which provide enough money for us to live on.  Having been laid-off last spring TC is still taking contract work here and there.  We do OK, but not without effort.  To our credit we have a knack for hashing things out based on our value system and not money.  When seeking answers, our policy has always been to search our hearts and do what feels right regardless of finances, somehow we’ll find a way.  But this is a broader subject.  It deals with agreeing on delicate terminology, raking over a new set of ethics and making choices with weighty consequences.  What to do with the embryos?

Stem cell research had always been our top choice.  Researchers typically allow blastocysts/early-stage embryos to grow to a 150-cell cluster before removing the valuable inner mass.  Obviously, development then stops and the embryo dies.  Most left-over IVF (in-vitro fertilization) embryos go unused.  Of the ones that are used, only about half survive the thawing process.  Few will ever become fetuses.  A human embryo becomes a fetus eight weeks after conception.  Sure, it may look like an alien peanut, but all major human structures are in place.  This is not about whether I think it’s wrong to use left-over IVF embryos.  I’m a big supporter of stem cell research.  It’s about the image on the monitor that day and the babies I hold in my arms today.

Sometimes when I stare at my children I can hardly believe we actually found each other.  The pain of longing for each one of them comes back in a flash.  I think of how our oldest daughter came straight to us after only ten days in the birth pool.  I held her birthmother’s hand as she was born and sobbed with her the day the papers were signed.  I think of how many situations were rejected before our younger daughter’s birthmother came along and made everything right again.  We spent that Christmas night in the hospital waiting for Z to be born and when she came, it was the greatest gift of all.  My mind snaps back to that summer afternoon at our fertility clinic.  The embryologist was giddy.  “They’re just breathing-taking!” she said of the blastocysts.  I asked how she’d decide which ones to transfer.  “Ordinarily,” she explained, “it’s about finding the ones with the greatest potential.  But in this case, it’s literally eeny meeny miny moe.”

Who was next to T and D in the petri dish that day?  How many girls?  How many boys?  Given the opportunity to grow who might they become?  When I consider donating our embryos to a worthy recipient, I find myself coveting the baby-to-be.  I’d feel attached to him or her.  Considering the openness of our blended family I can’t fathom not fostering a relationship with the child.  All this, despite the fact that our embryos were created with donor egg and sperm, and the previous offspring of both donors will never assume sibling roles in our family.  The donors helped create children expressly for us.  They’re loving and proud, but not involved the way our birthmothers are.  We examined the terms of embryo-ownership for this very reason – what to do with the frozen embryos would become our sole responsibility.  They are full genetic links to two of our four children.  And now, as predicted by our counselor, I have grown attached (however illogical) to those frozen little buggers.

Some people opt to take their frozen bits home and transfer their thawed embryos on their own.  (The outdated term “implant” was replaced by “transfer” a while back, because embryos actually implant themselves.)  Self-transferred embryos might live for a short time before being absorbed into the woman’s body like any other dead cells.  I’ve never heard of one sticking in this instance, but I suspect some people hope against hope that one will.  I would.  Presumably the person is then able to grieve and move on.  My husband thinks this is a selfish option for us.  But I understand what motivates a woman to do this.  I also understand why a woman might choose abortion instead of going to term with an unplanned pregnancy and then choosing open adoption (88% of all abortions are performed within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy and as of several years ago less than 5% of all U.S. adoptions were open).  None of this data comes with a map or instruction manual.  Do I really want to have another baby?  I don’t know.  Do I really want to help cure disease through stem cell research?  Yes.  With embryos that might turn out to have the same eyes as T or the same smile as D?  I don’t know.  Do I really want to give these embryos a chance to become babies and give someone like me the chance to love a child as much as I do?  Yes.  No.  Maybe.  I don’t know.  How does anyone decide what to do in this case?  Where do the answers lie?  I honestly can’t say.  All I know is that it’s impossible for me to separate logic from emotion when it comes to the eighteen who were left behind.  And so, we pay the fee and give the eighteen another year in crygen-limbo.

Our Big Mall Adventure

This weather is killing us.  It’s been in the 20’s and 30’s this week.  In Portland we generally have wind storms.  They blow through every winter and they’re ferocious.  We can feel the upstairs bedrooms sway back and forth.  The roof rattles.  The floor shakes.

Every now and then we get a spectacular ice storm.  Houses look like they’ve been encased in glass.  Glistening power lines criss-cross and sag over the streets.  Stairs are off-limits.  Ice skating on sidewalks is possible.  We haven’t had one for a little while, but the next time it happens I’ll post some pics of it.

Portland also gets what other cities would call dustings of snow.  We call it Arctic Blast.  But I think most of us who’ve lived here a while would agree that our climate is changing.  The summers are hotter, the winters are colder and my rickety old house can hardly keep up.  It wasn’t built for this kind of weather.  The furnace is running round the clock.  We have space heaters in two rooms.  Judging by the reaction of my children I’m afraid Boston is going to be a wee bit challenging for them.

Yesterday  TC was craving what he called the commercial side of Christmas (“Remember how exciting it was when you were a kid!  Santa was at the mall!  Music was playing!”). We hadn’t been near a mall during the holiday season in many years (since Santa brought D hermit crabs when she was two).  I was very pleased with this achievement, but since I’m a good and faithful wife (wink, nudge) I went cheerily along.  “This is part of the magic, Kids!  We drive around and around until we find that lucky parking spot.  It’s exciting because you never know how long it’ll take!”  After scratching their heads, they decided they might as well join in.  Soon they were pointing and cheering, “We did it!  We did it!  We parked!”  We suited up in our hats, scarves, mittens, diaper bag and double stroller to make the hundred yard journey inside, but within seconds Z, a sun Goddess by nature, was losing it over the cold.  Except for the insane shrieking, her tantrum resembled a football player doing tire drills.  Meanwhile, the boys followed by shouting, “Cold, cold!  Owie, hands cold, owie hands cold! No like it!”  D who was built for snow made an announcement: “In Boston this is warm, People!”  After sprinting through the parking lot we arrived inside Washington Square Mall.  It looks like every other modern mall of America, but I must admit it’s been so long since I’d been to one of these places it felt a little like Disney World.  All four children were astonished.  TC exclaimed, “This is going to be fun, Everyone!  Just look at this place!”  None of the children had ever really experienced a big mall let alone one at Christmas time… throngs of shoppers, piped-in carols overhead, salespeople calling out, “Hi, can I ask you a question… do you like to save money?… wait, hello?  Hi!  Can I ask you a question…”  And when the children asked, “Daddy, daddy, can we look at the twirling wind chimes?”  Daddy answered, “Of course we can!”

We consulted the directory and charted our course: due north to Legoland just west of Build a Bear.  People have been hitting this Legoland for ages, but it was our first time and it was pretty cool.  My absolute favorite part of all was the twenty-something boy who so passionately explained the lego-artist’s vision of a Japanese garden and koi pond.  As long as I kept asking questions he (blue eyes, wide shoulders) kept talking.  I looked around at all the moms and dads, especially dads.  We were all so ragged looking, but there was an unmistakable twinkle in their eyes that said, this is what they do with legos now a days – awesome! More parents were jamming their cups with legos than kids.

We did it all.  The kiddie tumbling area.  The fleet of stationary cars that rock back and forth for quarters.  The Sleep Number store.  We even investigated the J.C. Penny family photo center (they were booked, of course).  Then we hit the food court for mounds of Panda Express (“Please! Please! It’s the best!” begged the girls).  On the way out we took some Cheesecake Factory slices to go.  We hadn’t had it since L.A.  I never learn my lesson.  If the menu says carmel sauce, peanut butter mouse, butterfingers, Reese’s peanut butter cups and a chocolate graham cracker crust, I lose all self-control.  It’s like holding a bag and a needle out to a junkie.  Later, after almost vomiting, I begged TC to intervene if I ever try that again.  Plain cheesecake.  It’s the only way.

In the car TC said, “Was that fun or what!?” as he searched for Jingle Bells on the radio.  “Yeah!” the children cried.  The whole way home I couldn’t stop thinking of the Griswolds and how I never dreamed I’d end up married to Clark.  It was a great day at the mall.  In another six years maybe we’ll do it again.            

The Threshold of a New Decade

A deep and primal hunger rises in me when I’m free of obligation.  Images come to mind… my sundress blowing in the Santa Ana winds, Spanish moss in the cypress trees overhead, standing in the shadows of a redwood forest, the crush of Times Square, San Francisco Bay especially with a tiny notebook and mechanical pencil in hand, my finger touching the doorbell of the flat where Tennessee Williams wrote Streetcar.  My twenties were an exercise in personal happiness.  A life governed entirely by inspiration.  It was accompanied by some unpleasantness – working for a director who was verbally abusive, trying to get a Hollywood apartment with no job and no credit, experiencing the pecking order of Nobodies versus Celebrities.  But conquering those challenges were empowering.  I had enough energy to work a full-time job, audition during lunch hours, hit the gym five nights a week, study acting two days a week and party till sunrise.  I’m so grateful for that time.  It’s exactly what I wanted out of my twenties.  By the end of the decade I began to figure out what really mattered to me.

My thirties were about marriage and mountains… proving ourselves again and again to create our family and then facing all the same mountains that come with parenting.  Artistic fulfillment, eclipsed by the miracle of our first baby, then second and third and fourth, was pushed aside and became nothing more than a faint, frustrated cry (a cry I never could ignore).  But given the choice of playing with my kids or carving out time to write, playing usually won out.  I know how fast time goes;  My oldest is in third grade with pierced ears already and it can’t be so, because just yesterday I held my arms out wide and cheered as she stumbled toward me for the first time.  Two full hours of my Burning Man road trip were spent crying over how much I already missed my children.  This is the push-pull of parenthood, the achingly beautiful dichotomy of it.  One part of me flourishes while another withers.

Here I stand at the threshold of forty.  I give you yet another one of my famous early exchanges with TC…

TC:   I guess some day I’d like to get married.  What about you?

Me:  Married?  Ahhh, like NO.

TC:  Never?

Me:  Well… maybe when I’m like forty and there’s like nothing left.

I am so lucky to have a whole trunk full of youthful wisdom to draw on!  Here I stand almost forty with endless possibilities before me.  Where I go is largely up to me.  There will be fevered nights, vomit, potty-training, tears, nap-strikes, and detours that happen along the way, but this is it: This is my life.  I’m alive.  We’re healthy.  I know at least three very special people who aren’t here to say that.  But I’m fortunate enough to be arriving at an age that seemed ridiculously old when I was younger.  A whole new decade.  Maybe my forties will be about trying new things.  Feeding that hunger in me.  Or figuring out what that hunger is anyway.  More reading.  Definitely more sex.  And Less.  Less chocolate.  Less frowning (I can’t afford the wrinkles).  Less repeating myself (this entire post is one big repeat, but I can’t help it).  A milestone is upon me.  On that day I’ll be flying back to Boston with the fam.  Less fantasies about plane crashes.  More fantasies about safe landings.

I’m in a good place.  They say Forty is the new Thirty.  And I’m pretty sure Fifty is the new Forty and so on.  It’s all good.  I’m just glad to be here.