This imbalance is one reason Monash IVF and Monash University have begun studying the rising number of eggs and embryos in storage, the shortage of donors and the process patients go through in deciding what to do.
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Because so many extra women now freeze their eggs in the past decade, researcher Dr Molly Johnson, of the Monash Bioethics Centre, said they would soon need to decide what to do with them. Eggs and sperm may be stored up to 10 years.
“There’s been a huge increase in the number of women freezing eggs each year, and data coming out suggests most women who freeze eggs don’t ever require them in future,” Dr Johnson said.
The number of patients with eggs in storage (4976) passed the number with sperm in storage (4860) for the first time in 2021.
Fertility specialist, Dr Nick Lolatgis, says people often struggle with the choice to donate embryos, as they “feel they are giving away children, or siblings [to their children] … They have to be in the right mindset to be able to do that and have no contact with them.”
He helps match would-be donors with recipients in his practice, and believes payment of egg donors should be allowed in Australia as it is overseas.
“I tell patients the waiting list for donor embryos is three to four years. When a patient is told that, they [may] think of other alternatives. Not everyone can go on the wait list – it’s age-related. If you’re 44 you can’t get on it.”
It wasn’t until the Vagias family had to apply for a second storage extension for their embryos that they confronted the decision to donate.
Ms Vagias says her husband, who had three sons from a previous marriage before Nicholas was born, still struggled with the decision for “very valid reasons.”
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But attending the required counselling “answered all his reservations,” she says.
“Theo walked out and said ‘we’re donating’. He wanted to give another family struggling with fertility the same gift we were lucky enough to produce ourselves [a child].”
After a long break in which they heard nothing about the fate of their embryos, eventually happy tidings arrived.
Detail about dates must be kept vague, but the family was thrilled to hear “the best news”, that the first of two healthy births from their embryos had happened. A third is possible.
“Theo actually now brags,” Nicky says. “He’s so proud and totally at ease and comfortable we made the right decision.”
For information about embryo donation, visit VARTA here or Monash IVF.
How one family made the difficult decision to give the gift of life
Source: Philippines Alive
