CHENNAI: A couple of years ago, when Kumar and his wife decided to adopt, they did not look for an adoption centre -they went to a fertility centre.
"We adopted
embryos
which my wife carried to term and delivered twin babies, " says Kumar, a resident of Anna Nagar in Chennai. The Kumars are one of the several hundreds of couples heading to fertility centres every year to ádopt'embryos, a procedure whereby developed embryos are transferred into the adoptive mother's uterus, allowing her to experience pregnancy and child birth. Fertility experts usually transfer more than one embryo -as is the case with
invitro fertilization
(IVF) -to increase the probability of conception.
"We see ourselves as the parents," says Kumar, "even though the doctors told us that the children were not ours, biologically . My wife and I were trying to have children for more than a decade, and we could not. Embryo adoption gave us two."
The procedure, says Dr J Krithika Devi, fertility consultant at Nova IVI, Chennai, is considered adoption because the couple who take the embryo has no genetic connection to it, as the sperm and the egg that unite to form the embryo are from donors, always anonymous. Her centre has facilitated more than 80 embryo adoptions. This works when the couple has fertility problems, but the woman should have a healthy womb. Doctors say women in Chennai are taking to embryo adoption because it allows them to go through the motions and traditions of a natural pregnancy. "The women get pregnant and so get to go through the traditional ceremonies of expectant mothers, like valai kaapu in Tamil Nadu," says Dr Devi. "The couples need to be counselled as they would for any adoption, because in the end the child is not theirs in genetic terms. "
Embryo adoption is an anonymous process, says Dr Devi, and embryos come from donors who are married and have healthy children. "Hence the success rate of donor embryo transfer is generally higher than in-IVF cycles. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.
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