FAMILY TO GROW WITH SAVED EMBRYO

"This is a wonderful testimony of how embryos being stored are LIFE and should be treated as LIFE ... and not taken away (destroyed) by utilizing them for embryonic Stem Cell Research." ~Glenn Taylor




Child due from 1 of 1,400 rescued in Katrina chaos

January 4, 2007

BY JANET McCONNAUGHEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS -- A baby album for Rebekah Markham's soon-to-be-born child could include something extra special: photos of police officers using flat-bottomed boats to rescue the youngster's frozen embryo from a sweltering hospital in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Markham is about to give birth via cesarean section, nine months after being implanted with an embryo that nearly thawed when the flooded Lakeland Hospital lost electricity.

"It's going to be exciting for the little baby, once he gets old enough to realize what it went through," said Markham, a 32-year-old physical therapist whose husband, Glen, 42, is a New Orleans police officer.

The baby -- the Markhams are guessing it's a boy -- will be one of the first born from more than 1,400 embryos rescued from the New Orleans hospital two weeks after the storm.

"That is great! I'm going to call all our officers and tell them. They'll be pretty excited," said Lt. Eric Bumgarner, one of seven Illinois Conservation Police officers and three Louisiana state troopers who sloshed through floodwaters to remove the embryos. Bumgarner said he often has wondered what happened to the embryos.

Markham's C-section is set for Jan. 16. Because she and her husband have fertility problems, a clinic created embryos from her egg and his sperm in 2003.
Two were implanted immediately, and one grew into their first child -- a boy who turned 1 just before Hurricane Katrina hit.

The other embryos were stored in liquid nitrogen tanks at about 320 degrees below zero for future use.

The Markhams' embryos, along with those belonging to hundreds of other couples, were kept at the Fertility Institute's laboratory at Lakeland Hospital.

Two days before Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005, the clinic took steps to protect the embryos by topping off all of its tanks with liquid nitrogen and moving them to the third floor.
But Katrina's eight feet of water knocked out the electricity, and the temperature climbed. A freshly topped-off tank is safe for three to four weeks in an air-conditioned room, but "I'm sure the temperature was over 100 degrees in that hospital," said Dr. Belinda (Sissy) Sartor, a fertility expert for the institute.

Fearing the embryos would be ruined, she contacted a state lawmaker, who called Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and on Sept. 11, 2005, Illinois officers on loan to Louisiana set out in National Guard trucks, towing flat-bottomed boats.

A flat surface was essential: The 35- and 40-liter nitrogen tanks weighed up to 90 pounds and had to stay upright. If they tipped, nitrogen would spill.
The boats puttered past cars still flooded almost to their windows. The boats were taken through the flooded halls, and the embryos were floated across town to a hospital that hadn't flooded.

The Markhams, who live in Covington, haven't picked baby names yet. But if it's a girl, she won't be called Katrina.
"There's nothing good associated with that name," Rebekah Markham said.

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