SAN FRANCISCO (CN) --- Taking the witness stand on the sixth day of a jury trial over a shocking fertility clinic accident, three patients described the sense of loss, sadness and anger they felt after learning their frozen eggs and embryos were damaged in a cryogenic tank failure.
“I never thought this would be my story,” said fertility clinic patient Adrienne Sletten. “I felt really sad.”
Sletten is one of five plaintiffs suing cryogenic tank manufacturer Chart Inc. over a March 2018 equipment failure that prematurely thawed thousands of frozen eggs and embryos at a Pacific Fertility Center lab in San Francisco. While the lawsuit involves only five plaintiffs, it could establish Chart’s liability for the loss of human reproductive tissue belonging to hundreds of patients.
The plaintiffs say Chart caused the catastrophe by using a weaker weld near a liquid nitrogen inflow pipe, making the tank susceptible to cracking, leaks and failure. Chart denies those claims and says the accident was caused by fertility clinic employees misusing the product.
On the witness stand Wednesday, Sletten described how she decided to freeze her eggs at age 38 in 2016 because she always wanted to have a family but hadn’t met the right person yet.
“It was buying myself some hope --- insurance --- just hope that I would never have to use these eggs because I wanted to get pregnant naturally, but if I didn’t, it would give me another chance,” Sletten said.
With some financial help from her parents, Sletten paid about $14,000 to retrieve, freeze and store two eggs. To prepare for the procedure, she gave herself injections twice daily and endured uncomfortable side effects.
“I was bloated, felt terrible, felt weird,” Sletten said. “I was emotional --- a lot of things --- I also felt like less of a woman and sad.”
When she learned doctors had successfully retrieved and frozen two eggs, she said it gave her hope. But that sense of optimism crumbled in March 2018 when she saw newscasters discussing a fertility clinic accident on NBC’s “Today” show.
Sletten said the news made her feel “awful, sad, angry, disappointed.”
Sletten, who works as an office manager for a tech company, is now trying to get pregnant with her long-term partner of almost two years. She told jurors that not having a backup plan in the form of two frozen eggs is disappointing, but the prospect of going through another round of grueling fertility treatments at age 43 feels daunting.
“I can’t move forward, and the logical part of me knows that I’m delaying my biological clock, but the emotional part… I’m stuck,” Sletten said. “I’m scared. The whole thing is just paralyzing.”
Rosalynn is another patient who decided to freeze her eggs at age 34 in 2013. Testifying on the witness stand, she described taking hormones on a daily basis to prepare for the procedure. It made her feel “bloated, irritable and emotional,” circumstances she had to cope with while working in sales for an insurance company and traveling across Northern California for work.
“I was driving everywhere, and it was just very uncomfortable,” said Rosalynn, who requested that her last name be redacted in news coverage. “It was very challenging.”
Rosalynn paid about $17,000 to freeze 18 eggs about one week before her 35th birthday.
After freezing her eggs, Rosalynn got married in 2016 and got pregnant through natural conception. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy in January 2017.
When she learned about the tank accident in March 2018, she was pregnant with her second child. Rosalynn said she was shocked and disappointed by the accident but felt blessed she was already pregnant at the time. Then, at age 40, Rosalynn went in for a routine doctor's appointment and was told the baby inside her had no heartbeat. She had miscarried, and she instantly felt “crushed.”
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