"We've Been Rooting for the Baby the Whole Time"

Today's News & Views
September 21, 2009

"We've Been Rooting for the Baby the Whole Time"

By Dave Andrusko

Please send comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me at www.twitter.com/daveha.

I'm still a dead-tree newspaper reader so the only time I watch television in the morning is when I'm at the gym. Thus it was particularly fortuitous that I should happen to see the remarkable story of Carolyn and Sean Savage, featured on the Today Show Monday morning.

Carolyn and Sean Savage
[From Today Show website]

The story is nicely summarized in the first few paragraphs of an account on the Today Show's webpage that accompanied the television interview.

"It is supposed to the happiest news a couple can get, especially a couple who have difficulty conceiving and carrying babies," wrote Mike Celizic. "The in vitro fertilization procedure had been a success: Carolyn Savage was pregnant.

"And then came the horrible news: It wasn't her baby. The fertility clinic they had used had made an all but inconceivable mistake and had implanted another couple's embryos into Carolyn.

"'They delivered the worst news of our life,' Sean Savage told TODAY's Meredith Vieira Monday from the family's Sylvania, Ohio, home."

What makes this story of direct importance to us is the courage and the generosity of Carolyn and Sean who, at the same time they were apprized that the child was not biologically theirs, were told that if they did not exercise their "option" to "terminate," once delivered the child would be united with his biological parents.

We learn that Carolyn has not only had difficulties becoming pregnant, she has also had great difficulty carrying babies to term. Now 40, she experienced several miscarriages after her second child, Ryan was born in 1997. On top of that she was diagnosed with a series of serious medical problems.

After ten years of futilely trying to conceive a third child, the couple decided on IVF. More medical problems for Carolyn ensued along with more miscarriages. Finally they conceived a child through IVF and in May 2008 their third child, Mary Kate, was born. The remaining embryos were frozen.

The couple subsequently decided to have a fourth child. "This past February, in the belief that they were using the last of their frozen embryos, Carolyn went back to the fertility clinic," Celizic wrote. "On Feb. 16, a blood test confirmed that one of the embryos was viable and Carolyn was pregnant."

Sean told the Today Show's that in virtually the same sentence the fertility clinic told Sean that his wife was pregnant they said they had implanted someone else's embryos into her—an "all but inconceivable mistake," as Celizic described it.

Since you can watch the full interview at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32950836, let me just emphasize two other considerations.

First, as mentioned above, they could have aborted the child. But that was not an "option" for the couple who Viera described as "very religious." Making the entire situation even more difficult for the couple is that because of her medical history, this would be the last child Carolyn could carry. (The baby is due in roughly two weeks.)

Second, their ability to look above and beyond themselves is palpable. We're told that, physically, there have been no complications, but "It's been hard," Carolyn told Vieira.

"We've been rooting for the baby the whole time," she said in a memorable line. "We moved from a position of shock to a realization that this was actually going to happen. We needed to put the needs of the pregnancy and the child first. It's just been difficult, but we feel we made the right decisions on how to handle it." (Emphasis added.)

The other couple "has expressed their gratitude at the Savages' decision not to terminate the pregnancy," according to Celizic. "The Savages told the couple they understand how difficult it is for everyone."

They were asked in different ways how they could handle all this. Carolyn said they were attempting to stay positive, and were "trying to look at it as a gift for another family what eight months ago we didn't know—that's the only way we can get through this."

"The hardest part is going to be the delivery," Carolyn said. "I remember communicating with the mother of this child as to what I was envisioning and hoping for. I said, ‘We want a moment to say hello, and goodbye.' "

Carolyn, who understandably had difficulty holding her composure at times, was remarkably understanding. "What we expressed to them is that we know they did not ask for this. They were at home with their family minding their own business. We are not going to impress ourselves into their lives," Carolyn told Vieira.

"Of course, we will wonder about this child every day for the rest of our lives," she said. "We have hopes for him, but they're his parents, and we'll defer to their judgment on when and if they ever tell him what happened and any contact that's afforded us. We just want to know he's healthy and happy."