Aggregated News
The couple wanted a baby boy, but the male embryo they had chosen — the only one available after an expensive round of in vitro fertilization — received a troubling test result.
A handful of cells from the five-day-old embryo were deemed abnormal, apparently missing Chromosome 21, an absence that can lead to developmental defects.
Many couples having IVF would have reconsidered their choices. But the two women, aged 48 and 45, had the embryo implanted anyway. And despite the initial test findings, their baby was born healthy in 2014.
“The whole pregnancy was an emotional roller coaster,” said one of the mothers. (The women were granted anonymity because no one knows the child is not biologically related to either one, and they would like to explain it to him once he is older.)
“Even when the baby was born, it took me a good five to 10 minutes to even look at him,” she said. “Finally I peeked over, and he looked normal.”
The test used on their embryo is called preimplantation genetic screening, or P.G.S., a...