Returning from a 3 months "vacation" back home, I had to catch up on all my shows. I had missed all the major season finales, and I desperately logged on online to check them out. There I was, the last month of my pregnancy, watching my favorite dramas online in the middle of the night. One of my all time favorite show: Private Practice had an extremely dramatic story line for the season finale. If you do not know, Private Practice is a spin off Grey's Anatomy. And in this show, doctors specialising in pediatrics, psychology, general medicine and fertility share a practice in LA. On the season finale, among other big issues, we find out that the fertility specialist switched embryos. She implemented one client's embryo into another woman and vice versa. The women were carrying each other children. No big deal, I thought at the beginning: they would just have to go on with the pregnancy and switch babies once they were born. But of course, knowing the show, I was sure that it would not be that easy; one of the women did not want to keep the baby, because she wanted to feel the pleasure of carrying her own child. Of course, at the end, after endless counseling, both ladies decided to go on with their pregnancies and switch the babies after their births. As always I was touched by this episode. I could not even begin to consider what I would do if I were in those women's shoes.
Today, as I was watching the news, I found out about a lady-Carolyn Savage who had someone else's embryo implemented in her. Usually, it is art imitating life, but here we had a case of life imitating art. However, this case is even worse because unlike the show, only Carolyn found herself pregnant. The woman who owned the eggs is not.
Carolyn Savage and her family have decided to go through with the pregnancy. After delivering, she will give the baby to the biological parents, knowing that she cannot legally have custody. However, she says that she will always feel connected to this child and hope to become part of his life.
As a person who just delivered her second child recently, I cannot imagine what pain Carolyn will be in, once she sees that human life that was growing inside of her, being swept away and given to some other family. I hope she is strong enough not to have a meltdown. I know I would have freaked if I were at her place. Whether she liked it or not, during all the months of her pregnancy, a bond was created between her and the baby she is carrying. And it will be hard for her to severe this relationship. I can already imagine her having a severe case of postpartum depression.
In today's world, more and more people are challenged when it comes to conceiving children naturally. And more and more of them turn to fertility clinics to conceive naturally. It is time and money consuming to go through a fertility clinic. And from what I learned, it also takes an emotional toll on those people. Therefore, it is the doctor's duty to make sure that mistakes such as this one do not happen.
Error is human. Doctors are human and we cannot expect them to be perfect all the time. They are not GOD, even though in a way they are playing being GOD. I do not want to enter into a debate about whether or not it is morally wrong for doctors to implant embryos in women. I think that it is hard for any woman who has a dream of having children, to be told that she may be challenged. And I guess, any determined woman would do anything (within the law) to get pregnant. I sincerely cannot blame her. Yet, there are obstacles that she may face when she chose to take this path. And this case proves it. Therefore, she should be emotionally prepare to deal with the worse case scenario.
What is in the future of Carolyn Savage? Only GOD knows. I just hope that she has a safe delivery, and that her family and the unborn baby's family together find a solution to this issue that will be good for all of them.
Check out the first part of Private Practice season finale (when both ladies discovered that their embryos had been switched)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SIfw-C0iKE&feature=related
For more info about Private Practice, go to http://abc.go.com/shows/private-practice
Read the article about Carolyn Savage's story
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/22/wrong.embryo.family/index.html
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