The Strong Pull of a Handful of Tiny Cells

It came in the mail again one day: the bill from the hospital for storing our frozen embryos. They can be kept indefinitely, as far as anyone knows, but there’s really no point. Eventually they should be used or discarded.

The first year we paid the annual fee with little discussion. Our girls were only 4 months old. We were nearly certain that two was plenty, but what if, God forbid, something happened to one or both of them? A hundred and something dollars wasn’t so much to pay to keep possibilities alive.

The next year we hemmed and hawed a little. Aren’t the babies growing fast, and call me crazy, but wouldn’t it be fun to have another? OK, at our age it’s crazy. Would we really go through another pregnancy, no matter what?

It wasn’t the pregnancy so much, it was getting there. When my husband and I got together, we were both well into our 40s. I already knew I wasn’t ovulating regularly, and that becoming pregnant would be a struggle. We tried fertility drugs and inseminations. My husband is a radiologist, so we got a break on the ultrasounds. I was teaching part-time and writing. I cut back to just an occasional day of subbing because fertility became a full-time job.

At our wedding, for our first dance, the band played “Just in Time,” but, actually, we were a bit late. My hormone levels were dropping and my eggs were old. The fertility specialist told us the next step would be in-vitro fertilization.

We could try it with my eggs and a less than 2% likelihood of success, or we could try donor eggs and raise our odds to nearly 50-50. No chance of looking at my offspring and marveling at how they have my mother’s eyes. On the other hand, no worrying that they might get my size 11A feet. At close to $10,000 per in-vitro attempt, we decided to opt for the egg donor. It was a painful process. I had to suppress my own menstrual cycle to coordinate with hers, which meant I spent two months in artificial menopause. I developed an allergy to the progesterone shots, leaving my hips looking like they had grapefruits attached. Would I dare put my body through such an ordeal again?

Well, we said, let’s not close any doors ... yet. We paid the storage fee once more. The third year rolled around and when the bill arrived, we knew we really had to talk: The girls are wonderful, but let’s be honest, we aren’t going to do this again. It’s time to let go of the embryos.

When the eggs were initially harvested from our donor, she proved to be amazingly prolific. We had hoped for 12-15 to give us a chance for several attempts at in vitro; she produced 30. After combining the eggs with my husband’s sperm, we had 12 viable embryos. Miraculously, I got pregnant on the first try. We were blessed with twins, and left with nine frozen embryos. Our thoughts and feelings were focused on the embryos growing inside my body. Yet the others had to be contended with as well.

We had three choices on the forms we filled out at the time: When we no longer wished to store the embryos, would we prefer to: (1) Donate the embryos to other infertile couples; (2) Destroy the embryos; or (3) Allow the embryos to be used for scientific research?

Although our happiness had rested on someone else’s willingness to part with her genetic material, my husband did not feel comfortable giving his away anonymously. Plus, we felt like we had an understanding with the egg donor. We never met her but we spoke by phone and we knew a lot about each other. We knew what she looked like, what her hobbies were, what her family was like. She knew our ages, our careers, our interests and our hopes.

We had selected and approved one another for this sacred three-way union. My husband and I would laugh whenever we recalled our get-acquainted conversation: “Well, I’m not sure what to say in this situation, but you can have ‘em,” she had blurted out in her husky voice. It seemed wrong to give away embryos made with her eggs. So option one was out.

We wrestled and we reasoned with options two and three; they both seemed so cold--destruction or lab research? But these were just cells, really. Tiny combinations of 16 cells that might or might not take hold in someone’s womb. They may be living, but they are not lives. Still ... throw them away, just like that? All right, research, then. But did we want someone picking them apart? Well, there are no real bodies, no pain. If studying the embryos can further science, at least some benefit might be gained from an act that seems so destructive. So that’s the box we checked.

Three years later, when the time came to exercise our choice, option three was not an alternative; our hospital was no longer accepting embryos for research. But what about all the promising developments in embryo stem cell studies? What about the possibility we could be helping find a cure for diabetes or Parkinson’s disease? Sorry. Our legal department has advised us it’s too controversial.

We had to make our decision all over again. We still didn’t want to give them away and we finally agreed we would not be using them ourselves. It was silly to keep spending money when we knew what needed to be done. I told my husband I would phone the next day and tell the hospital we weren’t going to pay for storage anymore.

A week later I called the hospital and was connected to a clerk at the fertility center. I gave my name and proceeded to state my mission. “I, we’ve decided, you can ....” To my complete surprise, I burst out crying. He was compassionate. He told me to think about it and call back later. I hung up, bewildered by the intensity of my emotions.

My rational mind explained all over again why this was the only sensible decision, but if I made a move toward the phone, the tears would well up. How strange is that? I asked my husband.

Not so strange. We had seen the little bundles those embryos might turn into. We had seen the results of breathing life into those cells and they were our own precious daughters. We were about to destroy the last possibility that there might ever be more of them. We were going to authorize someone to take a treasure and throw it in the garbage. No wonder my heart was putting up a fight.

One night as I lay awake obsessing about it, an alternative came to me. Couldn’t we retrieve the embryos and dispose of them ourselves in a respectful way? I am a great believer in ritual for important life events, rites of passage. My girls and I celebrated their final day of nursing with a tea party of chocolate soy milk and popcorn on real china plates. I have helped heal the grief of many broken relationships and of loved ones who have passed with personal ceremonies. I have flung jewelry into the ocean, danced odes to myself in my living room, arranged photos on my mother’s grave, had long conversations with other people’s clothing, and sent written messages up in smoke.

My husband, though unpracticed in this style of coping, agreed. Neither of us had the heart to order the embryos destroyed with just a phone call, but to take them, hold them, bury them and say our final goodbyes seemed like something we could face.

We went to the hospital, and as we waited for the paperwork we chatted with the nurses. Yes, it’s unusual, they said, but you aren’t the first to do this. Most people feel emotional about their embryos.

Finally we were handed the embryos in tubes in an envelope. How small they were! What little substance they contained. I tucked them inside a pouch around my waist for safekeeping. It felt right to be carrying them, as I had carried my babies in slings and Snuglis. When we got home, the baby-sitter had just put our 3-year-old daughters down for their nap. My husband and I went to the backyard, to the place we had chosen to bury the embryos.

We didn’t want it to be a spot where people might tread or the dog might dig. We made a hole. We each said our goodbyes, saying farewell to what might have been. I was sad, but not as sad as I had expected to be. Being close to the embryos, holding them awhile, had given me some peace. Moreover, I was filled with love: for my husband with his readiness to go along with my plan, and the warmth and simplicity he brought to the ceremony; for our children asleep in their beds.

I reminded myself these embryos were just tiny cells, not tiny people. We spilled the liquid into the ground, noticing again how small, how just like water it seemed. We didn’t mark the spot. I think we were being careful not to treat the area like a grave, not to appear even to ourselves as if we were interring dead bodies or grieving over lost souls. To us, we were only saying goodbye to biological matter and dreams. We covered it and, arm in arm, walked back into the house.

My husband, who has the sort of memory that still knows Bob Hope’s birthday because he read it in his encyclopedia in 1958, can’t remember where in the yard we parted with the embryos. Neither can I. Do you think we’re blocking? I ask him. No, he says. I think we really were finished that day. We’ve moved on.

I guess I think so too. And all at once, as I am writing this, I remember the spot. It was right next to the apricot seedling, to nourish it, we said. As it happens, the tree is doing fine. We expect it to bear fruit next year.