In-vitro fertilizations are a common occurrence. Seldom discussed is the dilemma faced by parents when told that they are pregnant with 4 or more babies. Should they opt for fetal reduction to decrease the health risks for the remaining fetuses?
You've tried for years to conceive. You've read the books, bought the ovulation kits, charted your cycles - but to no avail. You desperately want a family. Your gynecologist suggests fertility drugs. Or perhaps you opt for in-vitro fertilization.
You miss your period. You run out and buy the First Response pregnancy test. It's positive! It worked! You're having a baby, or perhaps 4 or 5.
You're now 12 weeks into your pregnancy. Ultrasounds have verified that you are, in fact, carrying multiples. Each fetus carries with it additional health risks. You are informed that if you are carrying 5 or more babies, there is a 50% chance of at least one of the babies not surviving. 4 babies, a 14% chance, 3 babies, a 7% chance. What do you do?
This is a dilemma faced by hundreds of parents in this country. With fertility drugs and in-vitro fertilization's such a common occurrence, you would think that this would be discussed more than it is. The actual statistics on the number of fetuses eliminated due to the result of multiples are not kept, but instead are placed with the figures on traditional abortions performed.
After more than a year of trying with her husband to get pregnant, Stephanie received injectable fertility drugs and artificial insemination in the same month. Her doctors were shocked at the resulting quintuplets and apologized, but she doesn't blame them.
Stephanie and her husband opted for fetal reduction. She said she didn't want to know the sex of the babies, she glanced only once at the ultrasound screen, and was shocked when she saw how developed the fetuses were.
"They were clearly babies," she said. "The hardest part for me is I didn't think they would look like babies at that point, and they did."
The reduction took place, eliminating 3 of the 5 babies. The reduction occurs as a result of a needle being inserted into the uterus. Drugs are injected into the hearts of the fetuses, causing them to cease beating. The fetuses are then left inside the womb.
"They need to live with their decision," said Dr. Diane Danilenko, St. Paul-based specialist in high-risk pregnancies. "I remember one dad turning to me with tears in his eyes: 'You can say the survival is only 20 to 25 percent (without a reduction), but if I reduce one of those babies, that's a 100 percent mortality rate, isn't it?'
Religion has played a definite role in the decision making process. Many of the women opt not to perform the reduction for moral reasons. They feel that it is in God's hands as to whether the babies all survive.
Brenda Derks refused reduction in 2003, and now has five healthy 4-year-olds. Derks refused a reduction out of her Christian faith. The 27-year-old mother wonders which child wouldn't be here if she had decided differently. It was a hard decision at the time, though, and she knows she beat the odds.
"I'm one of those very much against abortion," Derks said. "But you can't really understand this unless you're put in that position of 'Oh, crap - suddenly, I'm pregnant with five kids and not only is their life at risk but mine could be, too.' "
Others, like Laura, pray for guidance and feel that God is telling them to go ahead and do the reduction.
Laura, 30, of Robbinsdale, MN doesn't profess any one religion, but she prayed to God when she had to decide whether to reduce quadruplets. She reduced her pregnancy to two fetuses, but then lost them in a miscarriage. It's one of the risks of reduction.
Laura got pregnant again - with twins - and delivered them two weeks ago. She and her husband now look back on the reduction and miscarriage as something that happened for a reason in their struggle to have children.
Stephanie now looks at her twins, and says not a single day goes by that she doesn't think of the 3 babies that died so they could live.
"I have always been pro-life. I still consider myself pro-life," Stephanie said. "This wasn't a choice in terms of choosing to end this pregnancy out of convenience. In order to save the lives of two children, we had to make this decision."
So where do you stand on this issue? Do you see any problem with conceiving 4 or 5 babies, and then opting to eliminate a few for the sake of the remaining? And if you profess to be Christian, can you justify in-vitro fertilization or fertility drugs to get pregnant, and if it results in multiples, then justify essentially aborting any of the babies for health reasons?
The thing that bothers me is how those that profess to a religious belief play both sides of the coin. On the one hand, they are unable to conceive naturally. Would that not be within God's plan? Since they can't conceive the traditional way, they opt for drugs or surgery.
Once pregnant, they find it within themselves to justify eliminating the unwanted fetuses to insure the health of two or three.
As a Christian myself, I don't grasp the logic here. Do you?
