Fertility treatments, ethical dilemmas and frozen embryos

Disclaimer - This tends to be a very controversial topic, one where people have vastly different views and opinions on the matter. The post below describes how WE, as a couple, decided that fertility treatments were the right path for US to take as a family. It might not be right for you, and that is ok. 

There are many views out there regarding fertility treatments, especially from those who believe in a God who is in control of essentially everything, and that His perfect will, will always prevail. Some believers question if fertility treatments are "playing God" so to speak, and feel that undergoing treatment is showing a lack of faith in God's will/plan for their life.

I have heard these opinions from others all while going through treatment myself.

Makes for a very interesting discussion indeed.

I am a Christian and have full confidence in His plan for my life. Yet, I also was not able to get pregnant without assistance from IVF. If you are new to our journey click here, but in a nutshell a woman cannot get pregnant without growing and releasing an egg/eggs each month and well, my body wasn't doing either of those things. When I did get on injectable medicine to help with egg production/release my body freaked out and produced, I don't know, about a million eggs. In an effort to avoid our own reality show on TLC, IVF was the safest and really, only, option to conceive biologically.

Obviously we were comfortable with fertility treatments in general or else we would have not moved forward. So how did we become comfortable, some ask?

Here's the only logical way I can break it down for those who question how we "came to terms" with pursuing IVF. . .

I made a bad choice. Remember. . . anorexia messes with fertility. Please don't ever forget this minor major detail, especially for any of you who are reading and might be struggling with your eating, or lack of eating, habits.

Sometimes bad choices reap negative consequences. Sometimes these consequences are short lived while some are life long. For me? Only time will tell. But that is not the point. The point is that while God tells us we might endure a consequence for our actions, I do not believe that means we must remain stuck in the consequence itself.

I imagined God saying to me "Brittnie, because of your defiance and selfishness, becoming a mom is going to be a little a lot harder than you planned, but if you lean on me, I will walk with you through this next phase of life."

We translated that "next phase of life" to be each and every month we would undergo treatment.

We felt confident that said treatments were another phase of our story and ultimately we could use it for good, to continue His work. What a privilege to share our experience with others, and encourage those who might be faced with the same scenario.

We also believe that God blesses our society today with amazingly smart doctors and technology for a reason. To use them when medically necessary! Praise God for IVF and the brains behind the entire process. We needed help forming our little embryo(s), and feel that God hand picked our doctor to help make it happen. I could go on and on about this train of thought in general, but I think you get the idea.

You now might be wondering, what about those seven little embryos that remain at the clinic? Well duh, we always dreamed of having eight kids, so that's an easy decision!

In all seriousness, should we struggle to get pregnant again in the future several of these embryos will be used to do another frozen embryo transfer (FET). And if that attempt is unsuccessful, or say it is successful yet then I miscarry, then we have more to work with as time goes on.

But if we don't ever use them or get pregnant imediately after another FET then what?

There are three choices given to a couple deciding what to do with their remaining embryos when not using them for their own future pregnancies.

1 - destroy

2 - donate to science/research

3 - donate to another couple

How did we wrap our minds around this specific, tender ethical dilemma?

We had to let go of our need for control and just trust. Period. If we believe that God's hand was/is all over the IVF process then we must continue to trust that His faithfulness will continue. After much prayer, we had to let go and let faith take over and feel confident in the direction and decision we felt Him leading us toward.

After all, His track record is pretty perfect.

Have you ever thought about fertility treatments and ethical dilemmas? If you have gone through fertility treatments, were the ideas presented an issue for you? Please (lovingly) share in the comments.