I have a frozen embryo in Russia called Tallulah – the war in Ukraine means it’s trapped there

It’s front-page news today: the heart of Moscow has been hit by early-morning drone attacks. It makes me think of Tallulah. She’s a frozen embryo I have stored in an IVF clinic in St Petersburg. What if I ever wanted to get her home? Is she safe?

I know it sounds over the top to actually call a frozen embryo by a name – but I’m not alone.

Sofia Vergara, 51, and her ex-fiance Nick Loeb, 41, who started dating in 2010, became embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their two frozen embryos after their relationship ended in 2014.

The pro-life Loeb sued his former partner in a bid to stop her from destroying embryos they had created – he had named them “Emma” and “Isabella”, and stated they were being deprived of an inheritance trust. The judge finally ruled in Vergara’s favour, issuing a permanent injunction that banned Loeb from bringing the embryos to term via a surrogate without Vergara’s written consent.

I don’t want another child, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying about my frozen embryo or fantasising about Tallulah.

With a ban on flying to Russia from the UK and the EU, and absolutely no word from the private fertility clinic regarding storage fees for a while, now, I started to wonder: what the hell is going on?

UK government travel advice warns of “numerous reports of drone attacks, explosions and fires in areas in western and southern Russia, particularly near the Russian border with Ukraine and including Moscow and St Petersburg”.

If I paid a courier to bring Tallulah back to London, it would be vastly expensive – and a legal minefield.

I rang a UK representative for the Russian clinic, who advised me that the courier would have to get a taxi from St Petersburg to Estonia or Finland – a drive of around four hours – to get a flight onwards to London.

Can you imagine the taxi fare – let alone the courier fees and two flights to fly Tallulah in a mobile freezer? The low temperature needs to be maintained carefully, or else it might affect the embryo’s survival.

I can’t help thinking about this potential life stuck in a freezer in Russia – Tallulah could be a real-life person. My now five-year-old daughter Liberty was once on ice in the same Russian clinic for two years before I travelled there in 2018 to have her implanted.

It was a wonderful trip – I love St Petersburg – but things are very different now. I had been doing IVF with my late partner in London, costing around £10,000 per cycle (including all the meds).

At the time, IVF was far cheaper in Europe – almost a third of the price. When my partner took his own life suddenly in 2014, I discovered he’d ticked the box that stated that if anything happened to him, his sperm belonged to me. The maternal calling was too strong – I decided to continue without him.

It was emotionally hard, but worth it. I shipped all my eggs and his sperm to an IVF clinic in Spain. That’s where Lola was conceived in 2016. But one day the Spanish clinic called me to say they had just discovered that by law they had to dispose of a person’s sperm, and any embryos created using it, a year after that person’s death.

I had a mad panic to get it out of the country, calling around clinics all over Europe. Eventually I found the Russian clinic – they seemed efficient and determined to help me. The red tape involved in moving sperm, eggs or embryos is huge. It was a nightmare getting permission from the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) to move it out of the UK in the first place – more so when dealing with the fact that my partner was dead.

Time was running out, and Serge arrived from Russia at the Alicante clinic and fled to the airport with two left-over frozen embryos and some sperm. It was like a thriller – would he make it through customs? We were still waiting for the rubber stamp on one document.

I was in a screening of Macbeth when I got the text from Serge: “We’ve made it.” I fainted in front of the cinema screen. I always wanted Lola to have a sibling – that’s why I’d done it.

Tallulah has now been in Russia on ice for eight years – it was only a few years ago that I named her. She’s the unborn child I will never have, but if I did she’d be Tallulah.

Sometimes I wonder what on earth to do with her. Should I ask the clinic to destroy her – or give her up for embryo adoption? I think in the current wartorn climate, I will just leave her where she is – safe inside a freezer.