You're pregnant! Now what about those frozen embryos?

Seems that for every big question science answers, it creates an even larger dilemma. Case in point -- in the quest to give infertile women a shot at motherhood, hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos, each smaller than a grain of sand, now sit in subzero freezers nationwide. What will become of them? Shari Roan meets with local couples and looks into the complicated question:

Six years of frustration and heartbreak. That's how Gina Rathan recalls her attempts to become pregnant.

Finally, she and her husband, Cheddi, conceived a daughter, now 3, through in vitro fertilization. About a year later, she became pregnant with a second child, naturally. Their family was complete.

Then, a year ago, the Fountain Valley couple received a bill reminding them that their infertility journey wasn't quite over. They owed $750 to preserve three frozen embryos they'd created but hadn't used.

"I don't see them as not being life yet," says Gina Rathan, 42, a pharmaceutical sales representative. "I thought, 'How can I discard them when I have a beautiful child from that IVF cycle?' "

Are these embryos frozen cells or future life? Who decides? In November, Colorado voters will give it a shot with a ballot measure to amend the state Constitution to give an embryo the same rights as a person. New Jersey, Georgia, West Virginia and Indiana are all considering some kind of embryo legislation.

Details about what the debate in Shari's full story. Also: embryo legislation and the challenges of embryo adoption.

--Veronique de Turenne

Photo credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times