A London-based mother's hope of having a third child has been dashed after her nine-year-old frozen embryo, stored in a fertility clinic in St. Petersburg, Russia, was allegedly terminated due to unpaid storage fees. Charlotte Cripps, 49, discovered the news via an email from the clinic, which stated the embryo's storage was terminated on April 19, 2023. The clinic claimed they had attempted to contact her in 2021 but were "forced" to dispose of the embryo. Cripps, however, has no recollection of this communication.
Cripps had intended to use the embryo, named Tallulah, to have a baby via IVF after her husband, Alex, died in 2014. She successfully used his frozen sperm to conceive their two daughters, Lola, 10, and Liberty, 8, in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Tallulah was one of two high-grade embryos created during the IVF process; the other, Liberty, was successfully implanted in 2018. The decision to store Tallulah in Russia was made after a clinic in Spain, where the embryos were initially created, informed Cripps of a legal requirement to dispose of embryos or sperm a year after the donor's death.
"I can’t even be sure that she hasn’t been donated to another couple for their IVF cycle. It absolutely shouldn’t happen without my permission – but who knows?" Cripps wrote. She expressed shock and grief, noting that the clinic's actions felt callous compared to commercial storage facilities that warn clients before disposing of property.
The escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and the subsequent international sanctions, complicated any attempts to retrieve the embryo or even make payments. Cripps stated that she had lost track of storage payments for Tallulah, as well as the frozen sperm of her late husband, around 2020. She had contacted the clinic to dispose of the sperm after realizing it would not be needed, but this request was not acted upon before the payments for the embryo lapsed.
Efforts to contact the clinic for information were met with delays and unresponsiveness. When Cripps finally received a reply from the clinic's international department, it confirmed the termination of storage. She had been paying approximately £100 per year for the storage of both the sperm and the embryo. The prospect of retrieving the embryo became increasingly fraught with logistical and legal challenges due to travel advisories against visiting Russia and the refusal of international courier companies to transport the embryo due to safety concerns. The estimated cost for such a transport before the war was between £5,000 to £6,000.
Cripps described the ordeal as a "stressful and complicated search" and a "costly minefield." She is now faced with the difficult task of explaining to her daughters that their longed-for sister will not be coming home. The loss of Tallulah has reopened her grief for her late husband, as the embryo represented a biological link to him. "I feel guilty and also overwhelmed with feelings of delayed grief," she wrote. "She was, after all, half me and half Alex. Who would she have looked like? What would her personality have been?"