Every time I read an article about Sofia Vergara and her ex-fiancé Nick Loeb’s Embryo battle, I’m overcome with sadness. This battle hits way too close to home for me.
It is a battle that will haunt me for life because I too have embryos created with an ex-partner.
The embryos, in both mine and Sofia’s cases, were created inside a loving relationship with the intention of creating a family, and those relationships have ended.
But when we move on and find new partners, do we just let one partner decide for both of us that we should bring them to life and cut the other parent out?
One in six women suffer from fertility problems, whether it’s a disease such as Endometriosis, like I have, or a different illness. In these situations, it’s very common for couples to undergo IVF. But what happens when you do IVF and the relationship ends? What happens to the embryos?
The news stories about Sofia and Nick depict a bitter feud. Nick is fighting to have the embryos implanted and he wants to raise their children. He is trying every tactic to make it happen.
Does Nick have a deeper reason for his fight? Sofia has moved on and doesn’t want to have children with Nick. Nick is saying that those embryos deserve a life. Side note: I don’t trust Nick or his intentions.
I don’t want children with my soon to be ex-husband and I would be heartbroken if he won the right to use the embryos in a new relationship, to see my child raised without me in their life. That’s just cruel.
To me, they are my children even as embryos. I went through hell to create them. But the reality is, it is nearing more and more impossible for me to become a mother.
I can’t bring myself to destroy them, that doesn’t feel like the right thing to do, and I don’t want to donate them and see a little Mel running around if I haven’t had my own children.
What if I don’t get another chance to make new embryos? Could we really put our differences aside and share custody? Or do I pull a Nick and demand to take custody of them?
The conclusion that I keep coming back to is that it wouldn’t be fair to bring a child into the world if the father didn’t want that to happen. I would hate to bring a child into a hostile situation even if it meant that I miss out on my chance to become a mother.
I’m going to keep those embryos frozen, I don’t know what their future is right now but I know that I can’t just destroy them.
As for me being a mother, I’ll leave that up to fate.
Feature image via Facebook.
Listen to Meshel Laurie tell Mia Freedman about her own fertility struggles:
Top Comments
Another option is for Mel to discuss with her ex the option of his converting from being the father of the resulting offspring to the 'donor' instead. It would absolve him of rights and responsibilities if he agreed. In Victoria further counselling and paperwork / forms need to be competed.
Mel - for goodness sake, use your embryos! Implant them - yourself, a surrogate, an open adoption type scenario .... think it through and see what you can do ... and do it quickly!
Where does the guy who contributed half of the creation of the embryo and might not want to be a father fit into this?
I agree, why do they automatically belong to the female? They don't.
Of course they don't. You do realise that before any embryos are used or disposed of both partners must sign a release form? Mel knows this. So if she does end up using them it will be with her ex husbands blessing.
You said in your earlier comment this sort of thing was not "standard practice", now you are saying it is regulated and standard practice.