August 26, 2012

A few days ago, Travis went in to the clinic to pay for our round of IVF. I had a work meeting so I was unable to attend. We had already done genetic testing to make sure we were not carriers for anything crazy, but we knew we wanted some advanced testing done for both chromosomal abnormalities as well as gender.  Our fertility clinic only allows gender testing for family planning.  Well, we only want two children, one boy and one girl. Our hope is that one male and one female embryo would be implanted and whichever one took (assuming one does) would be great, and the following time we would only implant the opposite gender. 

When Travis got to the gender/chromosomal testing, he told them we wanted to test for gender, and was told we could not do that because we did not have any children already, and they only use it for family planning (if you have 5 girls and want a boy – or if you would pass down a genetic disease to your boy and only wanted girls as a result). Travis called me and asked if I had talked to our nurse about it and I mentioned we had talked about it, but didn’t know if we had really discussed it in depth. Travis asked me to call the nurse and see what they had to say and that we would figure it out and pay when we needed to.

About 30 minutes later Travis called me again. Our doctor came in to discuss the situation with him. The doctor said it was only used for family planning, and Travis told him that is what we wanted. We wanted to implant one male, one female – in hopes of getting pregnant with one – and then implant the one that did not take the next time so we could have one of each. We were not concerned with having  a boy or a girl first, but we only wanted two children and wanted to have one of each – hopefully using frozen embryos if possible – so we don’t have to do IVF entirely again.

Apparently, Travis and I are the first people in the history of the clinic to come up with that scenario. The doctor was surprised, but liked our logic, and we were given the approval to do the gender testing. At the same time we will be doing the chromosomal testing. Doing such, will make it so the embryos we implant, are more likely to take because they will be healthier. Most embryos with chromosomal abnormalities are miscarried – so this could be really good for us. 

The process is quite crazy though. After my eggs have been retrieved and fertilized, between day three and day five they implant. To do the genetic and gender testing they take a small sample of each embryo that is to be tested on day five, it is immediately transported to the testing center in Michigan (I guess they fly it there?) where it is tested, evaluated, and the results sent to the doctor electronically – and the embryos (I guess technically they are blastocytes by then) are implanted. All of that in ONE day?!  Can you believe it?  The chances are likely that there will be fewer embryos on day five, but that is okay – because hopefully they are stronger and are more likely to take. 

I have had mixed reactions from the very few we have told about this – people telling me we are playing God by trying to choose gender, or by checking for chromosomal abnormalities – to those people I say, we have this technology for a reason. If this were 20 years ago, Travis and I would not be able to get pregnant at all because ICSI wasn’t invented until the early 90’s. We are not customizing a baby by choosing blonde hair and blue eyes – we are trying to create a healthy baby that we would otherwise not have, using the science and technology available to us. I have no problems with that. If you do, please stop reading. Please don’t say anything to me about it. Your opinion is just that, your opinion.