You have 3 kids and feel one is missing. You and your partner try for awhile to have that fourth baby only to discover it won’t happen without medical intervention. You go through the agonizing and expensive process of IVF. Recently riding the roller coaster of implantation, you eagerly await “that” call. The phone rings and the doctor says “CONGRAGULATIONS!”. You are beyond yourself with excitment….”oh, yea” they add, “we made a mistake and you have been implanted with the wrong embryo.”

That is exactly what happened to Sean and Carolyn Savage. Now, they are faced with a choice. Do they continue the pregnancy knowing in the end they will have to give the baby to the other couple? Or, do they terminate the pregnancy? They say termination was never an option. Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of the story, Carolyn will not be able to be pregnant again because of health issues, although they do hope to use a surrogate for the remaining embryos.

Here is the interview with the couple, Shannon and Paul Morell who will be adding a new little son soon. Hopefully they will be able to fully connect with the baby since they haven’t had the chance during pregnancy.

It never ceases to amaze me where medicine takes us.  This is a video clip from The Today Show.  Matt Lauer interviews a couple who had a baby and is pregnant again.  What is amazing about this?  Annie had one her ovaries frozen before under going chemotherapy.  After she was in remission, the ovary was grafted back on.  It is only the second time a baby was born after an ovary was frozen.  There are less than 10 babies born in this way so far!

Every year the CDC releases the National Vital Statistics Report the end of last year.  It is quite astonishing!  There was a 3% increase in births from 2005 to 2006, the highest growth since 1989.  There were 4,265,996 births in 2006 which is the highest number since 1961!  Teenage pregnancy started to rise in 2006 for the first time since 1991.  The total fertility rate was 2,101births per 1,000 women which is the highest rate since 1971.  The birth rate rose by 7% for unmarried women which equaled 50.6 births per 1,000 women.

WOW!  We are having babies!  The one that surprised me the most was the unmarried women.  Half of the women giving birth are unmarried.  i wonder how many account for women choosing to have children without a partner and how many were like my first (very unexpected blessings).

What are your thoughts on these numbers and what they mean?