I have just paid our latest embryo storage bill.

Did you know that in some states of Australia, embryo storage times are limited, perhaps to as little as five years? Or at least they were last time I heard, which was admittedly several years ago now. You might like to check my facts.

The point is, I just paid our latest embryo storage bill, and in doing so I paused for a moment, because in so many other ways I live in the conservative backwaters of assisted reproductive and alternative family-building legislation. I'm not trying to imply you can't use third party reproductive techniques (including surrogacy), adopt, or become a homosexual or single parent, but our brothers and sisters in other regions seem to fare much more easily on those fronts. When it comes to storing embryos, on the other hand, well, bless us one and all. As long as I pay the fees, they'll stay in the freezer, no questions asked. Which means that if, for example, one has embryos left over from a disastrous OHSS cycle performed in early 2006, which generated enough almost-rans to sink most reasonable people into some degree of panic, depression and/or financial disarray, such that it was decided to start fresh in mid-2007 and leave those last embryos for a later, saner time, which - praise be! - ended up being necessarily deferred until after the birth of a healthy child and then - praise and also astonishment be! - until sometime after the birth of another, completely unexpected surprise baby... just to pluck a set of circumstances from thin air... if this were to happen to you, and you weren't particularly keen to up and bin the whole batch on the spot just because some bureaucrat couldn't see why it would possibly take anyone longer than five years to use a frozen embryo, you don't have to jump through any legislative hoops or fill in any forms explaining your circumstances or justifying your decisions in triplicate to any legislative body in order to have your wishes granted, especially when you might have other things to do like, maybe, give birth*.

You just have to pay your bill. And they stay right where they are, in the freezer. As they should.

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*Or not. I did have mild, yet regular contractions for an hour or so last night, between about 3:30 and 4:30am - about 30s each, about 5-10mins apart - but that all seems to have gone by the wayside. Bets are still wide open. My eyes, on the other hand, are not. Sleep awaits.