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The Match: The Katie Trebing story

Experience the multimedia version of the Katie Trebing story by clicking the artwork below for videos, audio slideshows, interactive graphics and more. If you'd like to print the story series, please go into each of the stories below and select 'print' in Article tools.

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Ask Peter Williams, Stony Brook ethics professor, about the Trebing family and the decisions they made about their daughter's health. He will answer your questions on Friday at 12:30 p.m.

The Katie Trebing Story

The Match

A family's quest to cure their sick child

Everything about the delivery at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown had been normal. Steve Trebing was convinced he was about to have another son and was surprised when the obstetrician said the baby was a girl. The doctor immediately handed Katie to her mom, Stacy Trebing, and Katie eagerly breast-fed.

The Match

Newborn has rare blood disorder

"We want to make sure it's not her heart," the doctor explained when Steve returned to the hospital. Katie needed to be moved to the neonatal intensive care unit at Stony Brook immediately.

The Match

New technology poses medical, ethical dilemmas

Doctors have formed embryos outside the body for almost 30 years, since the first in vitro fertilization was performed to aid infertile couples.

The Match

Ohio woman with disease takes 'each day as it comes'

When Jen Johnson told her future husband about her Diamond Blackfan anemia, he didn't know what she was talking about.

The Match

Despite setbacks, mom continues treatment, gets pregnant

At 6:15 a.m. on June 21, 2004, embryologist Wayne Caswell is riding west on the Long Island Expressway on his Kawasaki motorcycle. At the office of Reproductive Specialists of New York in Mineola, nine embryos are waiting for him in a petri dish the size of the top of a soda can. These embryos were created from eggs removed from Stacy Trebing's ovaries and fertilized with husband Steve's sperm.

The Match

Genetic testing to yield 'donor child' relatively new

When Katie Trebing's parents considered creating a sibling to try to cure their daughter, they had few other families to seek out for advice -- the two geneticists who perform most of the tissue matching in the United States estimate only between 100 and 200 such donor children exist worldwide.

The Match

World's first donor child born using genetic testing

The first child in the world born after PGD confirmed he would be a bone marrow match for his older sister is today 7 years old and in first grade.

The Match

Where do the excess embryos go?

In any in vitro fertilization procedure -- whether to help with infertility, to screen embryos for inherited disease or to select an embryo as a tissue match for a sick sibling -- more viable embryos are often produced than needed to create a single baby.

The Match

Hope delivered: Baby conceived to cure Katie is born

"It's a boy!" says obstetrician Brian McKenna.

The Match

Ethicists ponder potential uses of donor child

The moral and ethical issues surrounding the selection of a donor sibling don't end with the baby's birth.

The Match

Freezing ovaries for later use is 'burgeoning technology'

Katie Trebing is believed to be the youngest girl to have an ovary removed and frozen for future use.

The Match

Cord blood offers hope to treat, cure diseases

Umbilical cord blood contains stem cells that have the ability to rebuild the blood and immune system.

The Match

Katie receives life-saving bone marrow transplant

As soon as Katie Trebing checks into Room 935, Stacy hangs construction paper "Get Well" cards created by a school class in Brentwood. She puts up a string of decorative lights with tiny lampshades in pinks and purples and plaids she bought at Target. On the window ledge she sets a snow globe with an angel in it that Stacy's mom gave to Katie.

The Match

Ohio boy dies of complications after transplant

When Keir Zangrando was alive, he created a superhero with a big "A" on his chest and named him Amphibian Man. In bright colors on spiral notebook paper, Keir drew comic books of Amphibian Man slaying enemies.

The Match

Family, friends host event to raise funds for Katie

On Saturday evening, March 4, 2006, every spot in the parking lot of the Moose Lodge in Mount Sinai is filled.

The Match

Katie's long road to recovery after transplant

Within days of arriving home in June 2006, Stacy Trebing is alarmed when she notices a rash traveling up Katie's belly and back.

The Match

Cured by her brother's bone marrow, Katie forges ahead

Stacy opens a number "2" candle and Katie sticks it on the sheet cake.

The Match

Experts fear potential abuses of genetic screening

Over the next few generations, the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) may become as common as amniocentesis, predicted David Adamson, a California reproductive endocrinologist and president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.