Celine Dion, 40, said on CBS’ Early Show that she’d like to have more children and even has a frozen embryo waiting. Dion has son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, 7, who was conceived by in vitro fertilization. It may sound strange to people who are not familiar with the process, but from what I could learn online it is common for any extra embryos created during IVF procedures to be frozen for future use.
“We’d love to extend the family,” the singer – who herself is the youngest of 14 children – told CBS Early Show host Julie Chen.
Asked if she has a frozen embryo, Dion, whose son was conceived by in vitro fertilization after six years of trying, replied, “Yes, we do have a frozen embryo.”
Only, one may not be enough. “I started to talk to René-Charles about it. He said ‘Can we have four and five?’ ” said Dion.
“So if we’re blessed again, I will be very happy to come back and do another interview with you and talk about it. I will be the first one to be extremely happy.”
[From People]
The possibilities people have to conceive with the latest technology are truly amazing. Called frozen embryo transfer, an embryo can be implanted into a woman that is menstruating naturally or through chemical means. The embryo is frozen in a process called “cryopreservation” from one to six days after conception, so it’s not anything close to a baby at that point and doesn’t even look like the peanut seen on early sonograms. The success rates for IVF vary and seem to be around 20% or less depending on maternal age and how many embryos are implanted. It can be lower for embryos that are initially frozen as they don’t all survive the thawing process.
Dion was brave to be so open about her desire to have another child and the fact that she’s going to try again. It may seem odd to us that she has a frozen embryo or embryos sitting there ready but it’s just part of the process and she’s honest about it.
Celine Dion is shown out in Monaco with her son on 7/10/08. Credit: Bauergriffin
Also, “extra” embryos can be donated to science to expand the stem cell lines that are already being studied.
Seems odd she would wait so long for a second child. Her kids won’t really grow up together, even if she got pregnant today. But, to each their own, I guess.
She’s Catholic though Kaiser – would she donate an embryo to science? There again, I don’t know what the Vatican says about IVF or keeping embryos on ice until one decides to proceed with implantation either.
Success rate is only around 20%…?! Sounds like it’s almost a long shot and would be easy to get your hopes up and then dashed if you are trying this and counting on this to have a baby.
@Baho, yeah, but there are a lot pro-stem cell research Catholics out there. Honestly, though, I was just trying to add a little piece of info to the conversation. A lot of people who do in vitro don’t even think about donating their “extra” embryos to science, and they should at least consider it.
If she was following Catholic teaching she wouldn’t have done IVF to begin with. Not a judgement, that is just what the Church teaches. There are other fertility treatments that incidentally have higher success rates than IVF but they aren’t very many doctors trained in the process (you can google Pope Paul VI Institute).
I think just about every Catholic I know is for stem cell research. It is *embryonic* stem cell research that they have a problem with (including me). It seems to me that is where the majority of promise is anyway since adult stem cells (in my understanding that means any stem cell that is not embryonic, including that derived from cord blood, etc.) have yielded actual cures.
I hope she gets the larger family she wants. I would guess that if she only has one embryo left (and one really old husband) she will probably go for a medicated cycle.
I’m sorry she has to go through this. I used to work with a girl who tried everything, including IVF, and it was heartbreaking to watch her, month after month, hoping and then being disappointed. Not to mention all the hormones they gave her to “ready” the uterus made her batshit crazy. It’s a tough way to get a baby.
I knew about the extra ones being frozen, but it seems odd to wait for seven years or more, doesn’t it? Especially at her age. She had her son at 33. If I had wanted more and had embryos put aside, I’d have had the others implanted when I was 35. Plus the chances of them making it go down a bit with every year they’re frozen.
Baholicious – Vatican says IVF is immoral. I just happen to be a catholic who disagrees, but whatever.
Hi Bella, if one believes Life is Life, they are not in the wrong. That is precisely what the Church teaches. That the Vatican has a specific modality under which live can be considered acceptable or not is…words fail me. Makes me want to read Blade Runner again, anyway.
p.s. to clarify, by ‘Life is Life’, in my mind that includes saving lives too, whether through stem cell application, organ donation, whatever.
I was thinking that, Bella Mama, but didn’t say it because I’m not Catholic and am not that sure of the rules.
Frozen embryo for a dead fish, how appropriate.
She isn’t honest about that not being Rene-Charles’ son. Look at the identigene ad on this site. Two brown eyed people can’t have a kid with eyes that blue. Just saying.
Sure they can. Blue is a recessive color. Brown dominant. If they both have recessive blues, they can pop up with a blue eyed child. There will be many many questions about the milkman, but they’ll deal with it.
Now if they both had blue eyes and they had a brown eyed child, that’d be a little different. Although my grandmother had one brown-eyed brother in a family of blue eyes. Knowing my family, though, Great Grandma may have trifled a bit.
mmm…thought they could if they both had the recessive blue eye gene….
Dante: C-C-C-C-C-Cold…
It’s possible. My father has blue eyes, my mom had brown, I have hazel, my maternal grandfather’s eye color. My ex has blue eyes and one of our children has brown. Crazy…..
edit* Sickkitten, hmmm, I just looked in the mirror and my eyes are still hazel, I’m not wrong. If I could post a family photo, I would.
My sister and her husband both have brown and their son has blue, it may be rare, but it’s possible.
No, you are all wrong. Maybe green or blue-green but never forget that Rene-Charles is Syrian. Nope, they cannot produce a blue eyed child. I don’t know why people have to argue for the sake of arguing. Go look at the identigene ad on this site and then come back to me.
Sickitten – this is an article from Stanford University which disagrees with your advert:
http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=2
Thanks, Mairead! I just want to say that it is not his son. Celine is always so truthful so I am shocked but understand. She’s just a beautiful soul.
I also disagree
i have three daughter with my husband(I am mexican he is half mexican and half white). I have hazel brown eyes, my husband brown (his mother is caucasion) we have two blue eyed daugters and a brown eyed one. On my grandmother is mexican but with blue eyes (spaniard descent) so anything can happen. or as i call it–dont hate
Candace, not trying to be a dick here but are they blue-eyed or blue-green like mine? Also, being Mexican is just like American or Puerto Rican. Mixed in for more than 400 years. Yes, anything can happen.
Just saying that Rene-Charles is cute in his own way but he is not the father of that Hansen-looking gorgeous boy.
Céline Dion’s husband is a Syrian-Canadian and not a Mexican. Of course they do have some features that resemble. I am a Catholic and yes it is against the church for IVF and also she married a twice divorced man and that too is against the church – you can say that she sinned.
IVF is very popular now. Look at J Lo, Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie. The odds are higher than 20%, it is more like 40%. Also the more embryos they transfer the higher the success rate. It is an awesome procedure for women with fertility issues or women you want to create families. LOTS AND LOTS OF WOMEN go through IVF !!!
That’s no real news. She told that everyone already before and/or while she was pregger with R.C. She never made a secret out of it which is helpful for the technology and its possibilites but a bit scary in my universe… no offense to anyone.
i appreciate her honesty.
my kids were conceived courtesy of ivf, and although i understand why celebs would not want to share details with the public, it is SO excellent when they come out and do admit their children are the result of ivf. takes guts. thanks to celine, courteney cox, sheri shepherd and others who are open about infertility.
yes I think it’s great that she was open about it.
I think the boy looks a tremendous amount like his Dad.
Regarding eye color. Forget just about everything you learned in biology class about inheriting eye color – scientists have discovered that some varieties of the eye color gene for blue, green and brown eyes don’t follow the dominant/recessive rules we were taught in school.
(Yes, those same eye color rules that had us wondering why and how OUR SIBLINGS could have an eye color that didn’t follow the eye color rules in the science book!!)
Wonder no more. Biology Professor Winkle, bless his heart, was wrong. Two blue eyed people can have a brown eyed child. And I’m talking two people with light, grey blue eyes CAN make a child who has dark brown eyes like an Italian child. I’ve seen it and I know there was no hanky panky on anyone’s part. It’s just crazy genetics.
My good friend growing up, looked like a perfect mix of her mother and father, but both her parents had dark brown eyes, and hers were light blue. She was their biological child, even though our science teacher told us it couldn’t happen. How heartbreaking that was, back in 1976. And of course, you didn’t talk back to the teacher then, did you? She just sat there, embarassed, as the teacher explained that it wasn’t possible that they were her parents, being both brown eyed, and she blue eyed.
Freaking ridiculous, but science teachers didn’t know any better.
And frankly, those are the basic rules of dominant/recessive in many situations in nature, but not always, and particularly not necessarily regarding eye color.
And for God’s sakes, someone sue that stupid Identigene company for misleading so many people with their “baby’s eye color can disprove paternity” test. According to that test, both of my children were not fathered by my husband, their biological father!! Shame on Identigene for false and dangerously misleading advertising that has caused many a family fight, I’m sure.
I have dark brown eyes, my husband light blue, and both our children have light blue eyes.
Not possible according to Identigene. Go ahead, take the test yourself and see. But I know it is possible.
Shame on Identigene!
Identigene is right on. Just admit it.
Oh and Cathy, just so you know and I bet you’ll find this interesting,you can alter the color of your eyes by exposing yourself to direct sunlight. You can make your eyes darker this way. I always wear sunglasses to keep my eyes as light and aquatic looking as possible. True!
How does anyone even know his eyes are really that blue? I mean, it’s pretty hard to see the color on here and unless you’ve actually got a look at this boy in person…?
It’s possible his eyes are actually some sort of hazel blue and they change color sometimes. I have hazel-green eyes and people have actually thought they were blue, green, blue-green, and light brown at times. Depends on what I’m wearing and the lighting and everything. It is possible to have a blue eyed baby with 2 brown eyed parents. I’ve seen it myself, as did other people on here.
Whatevs, you’re swimming in my pool, now. His eyes are that electric blue common in Quebec.
The Vatican is full of rich crusty old men, with their mind set in the 17th century. As a female Catholic, I just ignore some of the idiotic beliefs they say I should ad hear to. I’m sure she will be going to hell for IVF, but I guess I’ll see her there, because I voted for Obama.
Ok folks, I have run the eye color test several times. You guys need to look at it again. When you do brown, any color of brown, for both parents, blues are not excluded, just not as likely. Please stop fussing and just read the text instead of looking at the pictures and making assumptions. I am predominately Native American, and have very dark eyes, my ex-husband has light brown eyes, and both of our children have blue eyes. The odds of us having a blue eyed child, with us both carrying the blue recessive, which we must be to have had a blue eyed child at all, are one in four. If I could I would put up a simple chart to demonstrate this for you here. The chart I use, by the way, was created by Gregor Mendel, who is cited on the identagene page. If you enter two brown eyed (dark or light brown or any combination of the two) parents and any other color of eyes for the child this is the text result you get at identagene:
Summary: The Alleged Father is NOT EXCLUDED from being the biological father of the child because the eye color of the Alleged Father is CONSISTENT with the Child.
Your will get the same results if you enter one blue eyed parent and a parent with any color of brown eyes. If you read below that and above the eye pictures it says the highlighted eyes are the most likely colors to occur, but not the only ones, however that is only for at least one brown eyed parent, when you do both blue eyed parents you get very different results. While I didn’t run every combination, I did run enough to hopefully end this argument, now all be nice.
Such an old thread but I have to weigh in. I don’t care what the Identigene ad had to say about it. Two brownies can make a blue. To get brown you need only one brown gene since it is dominant so any brown eyed person you know may actually be harboring a secret blue eyed gene and this is the case quite often actually. It would be noted as Bb. A blue eyed person requires two blue eyed genes as it is the recessive trait and you need two recessives. They are noted as bb. A double dominant brown is BB. So, if a Bb procreated with another Bb, there is a 25% chance that the child will have bb, making it a true blue eyed child. Period. End of story. I have a case of this in my own family. There are plenty of Syrians and other people of middle eastern descent with blue eyes. None of this proves that a sperm or egg donor wasn’t used but it certainly doesn’t prove that it was used either.