The lovely Eloise from Fertility Help Hub invited me to write a blog about my experience which I’ve shared below and she also invited me to chat about it in an Instagram live which you can rewatch here
Making the decision to donate our frozen embryos
to science was the hardest thing I have had to do in my life so far. Even starting to write this is something I’ve put off, as it makes me feel numb and sad and I’ve been trying to self protect myself. Yesterday my son turned five and I’m today as I write this I am heading to my clinic to make a video with them talking about the decision. I’ll be speaking to the counsellor who helped us with the decision and the Director of Science about what actually happens to our precious embryos. What I am about to write might well trigger you, so please don’t read on if you are feeling vulnerable about where you are at on your journey.
The thing is I know in my heart I wanted to have more than one more child, however the reality wasn’t the case. We had successful treatment in 2015, our son Phoenix who is now five. Phoenix has been an incredible influence in our lives. He is the motivation for me to create The Fertility Podcast which I launched once successfully pregnant after ICSI.
The struggle to reach a decision
Over the last two years I have been struggling with the decision of what to do with our three frozen embryos whilst being immersed in the TTC community both on and offline. Creating The Fertility Podcast has been in some ways my therapy as I’ve been lucky to speak to a lot of people about different issues we have to face along the way in terms of infertility, yet it has also been a challenge for me to remain here through making this decision. I’ve watched people talk about having FET’s and becoming pregnant and have also talked a lot about how it feels to talk openly about secondary infertility.
So what did I do, well, I had to seek out professional help to deal with this decision and it’s something I highly recommend if you are struggling with any of your decisions but especially this one.
You see my husband and I are both siblings and the guilt I have around our son not having a brother or a sister is immense. It manifests itself in different ways, the conversations I have with new Mums and Dads I have at the school gates as my son started school in September 2019. The other day, I watched a story line on TV where two sisters in their 40’s were mourning the loss of their mother…together. I was instantly struck with sadness that Phoenix won’t have that support when the inevitable happens.
I had implications counselling
to work through the process of donating our embryos to science, after I had spoken to a fertility counsellor for about six months. She told me it was something my clinic should offer me for free so I contacted them and they said they would support me. I know every clinic is different but they should ALL offer you a level of support for every decision you have to make. My husband didn’t really want to talk about anything. This has since changed, ironically. I think something has lifted with him as a result of our decision.
I don’t want to go into the reasons why we choose not to have further treatment as they are personal but it was predominantly financial and that really does make me sad. A friend said to me, what if you just fell pregnant naturally you’d cope right – yes of course, but that wasn’t the situation we were in.
In making the decision to donate your embryos to science, you will have to accept that you will have to grieve. You will feel sad and you will cry. You will still get triggered by things you see on social media, pregnant tummy’s that you thought didn’t bother you will once again be everywhere.
But knowing that you are doing something that could help someone else is the one saving grace in this difficult and almost impossible decision. Someone said to me I needed to be 100% before I did it, yet after two years of thinking about it I wasn’t.. but I was nearly there. When you tell your clinic this is what you want to do, there is then paperwork, then more paperwork asking you if you are really sure. It’s heartbreaking once again.
When we finally sent the letter back to the clinic, I wanted to mark the occasion with my husband.
We went to the beach and cast three white roses out to sea. Of course they came back to us, floating on a wave to say – hang on we’re still here..
So I set them in the sand and walked away with the tears once again rolling. As I turned to look back I saw a lady with her family stop and crouch down, she was taking pictures of the flowers. Like the embryos going to science to help others, I knew that beautiful image of the roses on the sand was going to give her joy as it probably made a lovely insta shot. It certainly did on my feed.
Since making the decision I have now completed my qualification as a Freedom Fertility Specialist helping to support you better with your emotional wellbeing and mental health, by working one to one and in groups teaching a brilliant formula of counselling, coaching and mindset tools to help you create a daily self care strategy – and I’m in a much stronger place.
Since making this decision I went to Bourn Hall where we had our treatment and worked to create a video about the experience talking with the implication counsellor who helped me, a lady called Jackie Stewart and also getting a clear explanation of what embryo research is all about, from Bourn’s Director of Science, Martyn Blaney
If you are stuck about this decision and want to talk more about this issue, please do seek out support from an implications counsellor or of course you can get in touch
You can find out more about my coaching and listen to my podcast via www.thefertilitypodcast.com to subscribe or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
