It's so hard to leave a good embryo in a freezer – I should know, mine got stranded in Russia

I I have a frozen embryo stored on ice at a fertility clinic in St. Petersburg, Russia. She – and yes, I know her gender – has been in the freezer for six years. I even gave her a name: Talulah. She is the unborn child I will probably never have; a potential sibling for my daughters Lola, eight, and Liberty, six. I have absolutely no idea what to do with her.

I could just bury my head in the sand – the clinic in Russia hasn't emailed me storage fees for years, so that would be easy. I could send a courier to pick her up, but that's a bit difficult because of the war. Sometimes I wonder where she is and what – if anything – happened to her. Is she OK? Was she drafted? Talulah, the fantasy third that I can't afford and might not implant even if I won the lottery tomorrow.

Both my daughters know all about Talulah – she is part of our family history. Liberty wants a little sister, while Lola is much more sensible. “Don't be silly!” she says, because she knows it would all be too much for us if Talulah came into this world – which is very likely if I implanted her. I know she is a chromosomally strong embryo with a high grade because I did a basic preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) in 2016. This checks for chromosomal abnormalities, can detect Down syndrome and is a strong indicator of the risk of miscarriage.

I know there are concerns about this. Modern embryo screening has raised concerns that the rich will end up breeding “super babies”. US-based reproductive technology startup Orchid now offers comprehensive analysis of embryos. It claims to detect predisposition to over 1,200 diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes, coronary heart disease and cancer. The cost per embryo is around £2,000, on top of the cost of artificial insemination. But critics have labelled this “social engineering”.

In my case, I was suffering from low ovarian reserve when doctors strongly recommended that I resort to grueling IVF cycles. But for others who have no fertility problems at all, freezing embryos and pre-screening them for a variety of potential health problems is becoming the norm.

The argument is that many women go through far worse when it comes to cosmetic procedures—so why not go through IVF to have a superbaby? What isn't talked about much, though, is the emotional toll these decisions take. That's why I advise wealthy people who may have to discard much more than one viable embryo—especially when they're young and collecting vast quantities of eggs—to remember that it's hard to leave a healthy embryo behind. Or even throw it away. When I was first confronted with that piece of paper crammed with data, it didn't occur to me that one day the image of Talulah in a freezer, as if she were nothing more than a frozen apple pie, would haunt me.

As for my unfrozen family, Lola was born first – she was the best embryo I had. She was conceived at a fertility clinic in Spain as IVF was cheaper in Europe than in the UK at the time. Spanish law dictates that embryos can only be kept frozen for a year so I had to go mad looking for a clinic in Europe that would put the rest on ice for me. That's why they ended up in Russia. There, for about two years after Lola was born, it was a gamble whether to implant Liberty or Talulah, if I remember correctly. But now I can't imagine life without Liberty. It would break my heart not to know her as I do, or not to have her at all. How different would it be if I had chosen Talulah? Would Talulah have been the problem child? Had I been lucky?

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Now I have big decisions to make. I could give Talulah up for adoption, or even give her to an infertile couple. Or I could try to forget her. I know that Talulah doesn't have any feelings, rationally speaking – she's in the early stages of a developing human being – but to us she's real.

If I were to get pregnant with her, I would have to take hormones and force my period to prepare my body for fertilization – but my age doesn't matter at this point because I already have the high-quality goods. I might as well use a surrogate to give birth to her to save my body from another pregnancy.

These are the thoughts they don't tell you when they examine your embryos. I had mine examined because it made a lot of sense: I was over forty and was considered very high risk, as the rate of embryonic abnormalities was strongly influenced by the woman's age.

It wasn't that I cared about gender: the fact that Liberty and Talulah were both female embryos was a happy coincidence. When I was sending the rest of my embryos, eggs and sperm to Russia, I noticed the records. Embryo #1 (Liberty) was a girl, as was embryo #2 (Talulah). I thought I could take advantage of the opportunity. I let Liberty go, knowing she could easily share a bunk bed with Lola in my one-bedroom apartment. The problem with the Orchid Test, however, is that it takes the whole selection process to the extreme. Women are no longer too posh to apply pressure; they are too rich to strive for anything other than perfection.

Of course, every parent wants a healthy child, but don't underestimate the emotional toll that comes with knowing that your child has a lifetime or two waiting for them. Or in some cases, 17.