The Invisible Battle

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

I cannot bend people, places, and institutions (especially the FDA) to my will.

 

This is what I need to remember. I have been saying it daily.

 

After what seems like an exhaustive effort on all of our part, it doesn't look like we will be able to use our neighbor's donated embryos. I have personally reached out to at least 30 different organizations, fertility centers, embryo donation organizations, and the like. They all say the same thing...it can't be done in the US.

 

Even if we could find the ovum donor and have her retested (according to the clinic they have "tried" to contact her but cannot reach her), the FDA regulations (enacted May 25, 2005) will not allow them to be donated for human use because the testing requirements were not followed and the creation of the embryos was done after the regulations were in full effect. I have spoken to many fertility clinic directors and even if there were some loophole (or a waiver) to apply in order to save these embryos, the issue become liability. No clinic wants to take that risk on.

 

The reason the ovum donor recipients are exempt, is because there is an exemption for the direct recipients of donated sperm or ovum. So TECHNICALLY the fertility clinic did nothing wrong (except ignore the couple's desire to donate to a third-party in the future). And I am sure the clinic saved a few bucks by cutting those corners. Any litigation will have to come from our neighbors. As much as they would like to see these embryos donated and stop paying the $1,000 per year to have them stored they are already exhausted by this. Plus, they have two little kids to take care of. It isn't likely they will fight this. their only option is binding arbitration, because that is the form they signed with their clinic...so no real day in court.

 

I have also made several international calls to clinics outside the US. Our nearest neighbors, Mexico, have a quarantine-period law that applies to both sperm and egg, unless you are the direct recipient of an ovum donor. So Mexican law would require only retesting both the egg and the sperm donor. Of course, the clinic cannot find the egg donor, or so they say. They will not disclose the methods they have used. We have all offered to pay for an agency to find her, but they have given us an answer about that.

 

Canada is just now beginning to take on donated embryos for Canadians. They realize there is a surplus. Canadian laws lean toward the idea that embryos need to find a womb. Gay, straight, single, married, rich, poor...doesn't matter. Their laws are not fully in place for embryo donation; however, clinics (and there aren't many) have just stared doing embryo donations. Out of the ones I have found all by two have said no. Liability, unclear legislation, not a Canadian citizen, not Canadian embryos...take your pick, is fair game for rejection. I am down to 2 clinics on this entire Continent. Just 2. I'm not feeling any hope right now.

 

Out side of this content, I have just one word to sum it up...CUSTOMS. Importing embryos across boarders is a very tricky business. Storage and transport tanks look suspiciously like terrorist devices. I was told by several agencies that international containers were seized by customs and left until the contents expired! What a tragedy that must have been. You can't even get on a plane with a bottle of shampoo, how the hell are you going to transport a cryo-tank? There are some companies that do cryo-transport on this Continent, but over seas; however, customers have to be researched country by country not to mention finding a clinic, etc.

 

I realized about a week ago that I was starting to become completely unraveled in this process. I was loosing so much of my sanity and peace of mind. First, because I really want to have a baby (do I even need to say that there?) and secondly because these embryos should not be destroyed because of some stupid regulation so broadly applied that it does the opposite of it's intent. Remember if you will that these tissue donation regulations were enacted because the current administration is LOATHE to allow anything that might be stem-cell research. Under the belief that life begins at conception. But because ignorant law makers have carved out the politics of paranoia, the very human life they intended to preserve is doomed to be destroyed, ether by the inability to pass on these embryos to another womb or by eternal freezing (same thing, you get dead embryos).

 

So I have been fighting a battle on two fronts...one for me and one for the embryos. I'm tired and I'm sad and angry and all the other stuff that does along with beating your head against a wall, even if it is for a great cause. I had to take the first step and admit that I am powerless over all these things. I cannot bend them to my will, even if RIGHT is on my side. On top of it all, it's not healthy for me emotionally or mentally to keep going at this...like the terrier that I am. At some point I have to just let go, in order to save myself. So I am letting go of the sinking ship. I'm going to swim away now.

 

In a week I will know if the other two Canadian clinics will even entertain the idea. I am telling myself that I need to accept what happens. I have no power over the outcome. I have enacted all the power I have. All I can do is hope and try to accept the outcome.