South Florida Family Law Attorney
Providing Knowledgeable and Strategic Guidance
Providing Knowledgeable and Strategic Guidance
Frequently Asked Questions About Embryo Donations and Embryo Adoptions
- Who is allowed to adopt a Cryopreserved Embryo?
- Why would Adopting Parents choose Embryo Adoption or Embryo Donation over Domestic Adoption or International Adoption?
- How is Embryo Donation and Embryo Adoption different?
- Are there differences between Embryo Adoption Agencies and their policies?
- Is there a difference between Donor Embryos and Egg Donors?
- How is Surrogacy different from Embryo Adoption and Embryo Donation?
- A genetic family might have 12 frozen embryos available. If an adoptive family adopts a genetic family’s embryos, do they adopt all of the embryos, just one embryo, a few embryos, etc.
- Can an adoptive family have more than one embryo implanted in the same procedure? If so does that cost more than having one embryo implanted?
- How many embryos are normally implanted in one procedure?
- If a genetic family transfers ownership of their frozen embryos to an adoptive family, is this a permanent transfer of ownership? If so, and the adoptive family becomes pregnant, can they then transfer the remaining embryos to a new potential adoptive family or do the frozen embryos that are left go back to the genetic family? I am assuming this would be a part of the negotiation in the contract the genetic family signs-is this correct?
- Once a genetic family transfers the frozen embryos to an adoptive family, does the adoptive family become responsible for payment to keep all of the embryos frozen?
- When creating the contract with the genetic family, is there any way their contract can be broken once they sign their embryos over to the adoptive family.
- Is there any risk that a genetic family will change their minds after signing the contract and the adoptive family will lose custody of the embryos?
- Is there a waiting period from the time the genetic family signs the contract until it becomes irrevocable?
- Is there anything between a completely open contract and relationship between the adoptive family and the genetic family and completely closed contract and relationship between a genetic family and an adoptive family. For example, could the genetic family list some requirements of the adoptive family-only married couples, the ethnic background, family size, income, college graduates, etc.- and then let the agency match their embryo with an appropriate family without ever meeting or knowing the identity of the adoptive family?
- Can the adoptive family ask for embryos from a genetic family that has specific genetic traits – intelligence, physical strength, life longevity, good health background, etc.
- If there is a “closed” transfer of the embryos to an adoptive family, does the lab give any information to the adoptive family- specifically ethnic background and genetic health history?
- When a pregnancy occurs in an adoptive family, has there ever been a case in which the genetic donors of the embryo have come back and asked for custody of the child born to the adoptive parents? If so, did the genetic family gain custody of the child?
- Does the agency do the match of the embryo to the adoptive family?
- Adoptive families will want to know all information possible about the genetic family-is this information given to the lab and if so is it available to the adopting family?
- Can the adoptive family specify a specific gender of the embryo?
- What are our duties?
- What are your duties?
- What is the cost per embryo?
- Are donated embryos dispersed between more than one recipient? Is each embryo considered separate from the “sibling” embryos? Does a parent sign a contract for one embryo at a time? Or can a recipient family be given all the embryos from the genetic parents? We request that our families be allowed to be given ownership of all genetic embryos. We understand that the contract is good for a year? Or is this different from clinic to clinic? If the recipient gets ownership, what requirement are they under for embryos they do not end up using? Does ownership revert back to genetic parents after a certain length of time?
- What if the recipients have twins? (Can we have a contract that they will not do pregnancy reduction?)
- How many adoption agencies will you work with?
- How much does an adoption agency charge a family?
- How much will your charge be? Do you work via us? So we pay you (out of the family’s fees to us?)
- Do you have direct contact with the recipient parents?
- In an open adoption, who facilitates communication between the sets of parents?
- If pregnancy does not occur, how many embryos would be remaining?
- And how much does each attempt cost?
- Can we get a breakdown of costs?
- On open “adoptions” what kind of training and counseling is given to the genetic parents?
- On all adoptions, is there a recommendation for training for the recipient parents?
- In open adoptions, what is the recommendation for future contact between the genetic and recipient parents? How about genetic siblings in the genetic family?
- Do we get embryo information such as age of embryo in closed situations? Number of related embryos, ethnicity, age of mother at retrieval, etc. If there are any known genetic situations? The success rate of earlier transplants of the same genetic embryos” (Like if the genetic family gave up because none of the embryos “took”.) Viability of the earlier embryos?
- What stage the embryo is in?
- Do different “stages” mean more or less possible success?
- Since the adoptive mother travels to the clinic for implantation, is there some sort of guarantee that at least one or more embryos survive the thawing process?
- Do genetic parents undergo any testing to make sure they are free of infectious diseases like HIV?
- What medical prep does a woman need before transplanting of an embryo? Is there a specific time of the month that she does the transfer?
- Is there a program for single men and/or women that we could be involved in?
- In an open adoption, what information is needed by the genetic parents in order to select? If they want to meet the new possible parents, will that be known upfront?
- What genetic information is known with a closed adoption?
- How long does it take once a home study is completed and turned in (to you?) until a transfer is done?