NEWS RELEASE
CONTACT: Betsy Donnelly
Phone 913.236.7757
Email: Betsy22@aol.com

Cincinnati, OH – Adopting frozen embryos may be a relatively new method of making families, but the technology behind it isn’t.

In vitro fertilization (or IVF), the reproductive technique used to create an embryo in a lab environment, has actually been around since 1978. The process involves fertilizing the egg and sperm in a Petri dish supplied with nutrients.

Of course, the actual process of in vitro is slightly more complex, beginning with the practice of injecting the woman with hormones in an effort to produce multiple egg follicles. In a typical in vitro cycle, a woman is implanted with two to six embryos in her uterus. However, there are usually many more fertilized eggs remaining after the first transfer. These embryos are then stored in suspended animation through cryopreservation – or frozen for the future use of the couple who created them.

As a result of this technology, there are currently more than 400,000 frozen embryos waiting in laboratories around the world – their fate unknown.

Many embryos go unused once genetic parents successfully become pregnant and give birth. If the couple who created them did not use them, they could be destroyed – either intentionally or for scientific research. So the idea of making the embryos available for adoption was born.

One of the earliest embryo adoption campaigns was reborn during congressional testimony by parents who adopted frozen embryos, urging Congress to ban embryonic stem cell research, which would destroy children similar to the ones they held in their arms.
Today, President George W. Bush is encouraging this with a $1 million grant to help publicize frozen embryo adoption.