Remaining embryos from IVF
Our family is complete and exists because of IVF. We have healthy, adorable children and 10 remaining embryos that are all 5AA or 4AA and created a decade ago when I was 27.
We no longer feel the necessity to pay the annual fee to have them stored, especially since the price continues to increase. Started at $300 annually a decade ago and is now $1200 annually. Ouch.
I have prayed, researched and reflected and my body, mind and soul wants to donate them to someone else. I am open to whatever that would look like-- recieving news of a healthy birth, subsequent updates, offering access to our family tree/health/photos, even the idea of finding a way to meet and include the embryos turned human + their parents family if that door ever opened. I'm also okay with never knowing anything. Passing on the gift of life that we struggled to create but because of science was made possible sounds better than donating to research or discarding. My husband isn't sure if he agrees.
How much time should I give him? Our storge renewal fee is coming up in June and seems unnecessary to continue paying that when we could pivot to closing the chapter.
Would you be okay with a paternity test request?
I’d I’d been exclusively dating my now-husband for a little over a year. We were both in our 30s, both previously divorced, no kids, and living pretty busy lives. We had plans to get married, but hadn’t started living together yet at that point.
We went on a second cruise to the Bahamas and… drank a lot of Bahama Mamas 😅 He was actually planning to formally propose on that trip (even though I’d already been wearing the ring for about 4 months) - just so we could have that “proper” engagement moment and photos.
That same night, I ended up getting pregnant - completely unplanned, especially with the wedding still 4 months away. I took Plan B within 72 hours (the next morning), and I wasn’t on birth control prior to that.
About a month later, I felt unusually tired and tested positive on four at-home tests. We still weren’t living together at that point. I told him and scheduled an ultrasound - gestational sac was there, but no fetal pole yet.
We were both honestly really surprised by how quickly it happened. He had said he’d want a paternity test for peace of mind. To be fair, we had talked about this once while dating - he does want kids, but also said he’d want to be sure they’re his. I had agreed to it in case we were ever to have children together.
Part of his reasoning was that our baby would be “mixed” and might not look like either of us, so a paternity test would put any doubt to rest. I’ll be honest - that part didn’t sit well with me. It felt like a belief that may have come from his parents, who I’ve felt can be a bit biased. This topic had actually come up before while we were dating and almost caused a breakup.
Fast forward to now - I’m 8 months pregnant going into 9, and I do feel a bit stressed at times, like I should be prepared to walk away if I pick up on any racist undertones. His mom is generally nice to me, and I do wonder if some of those earlier views came more from his late father, who had strong opinions. Interestingly, once they found out I was pregnant, their attitude seemed to shift quite a bit.
Normally, if this hadn’t been discussed before, I think I would’ve been really hurt or offended. Even now, it still feels a bit… off 😑
For context - I did go ahead with an early blood paternity test at 12 weeks, and it came back 99.9% his.
Curious to hear from other moms:
How would you feel if your partner asked for a paternity test under a “trust but verify” mindset?
