A STOCKPORT couple are facing a desperate race against time to stop an IVF clinic disposing of their fertilised embryos.

Michelle Hickman and her husband Martin Hymers, of Heaton Chapel, turned to IVF treatment when Michelle had an emergency hysterectomy following the birth of their first child, Robert.

Because the pair wanted a large family, doctors suggested creating embryos and then searching for a surrogate mother to carry them.

Under current UK law, embryos created for surrogacy can only be stored for five years before they are destroyed.

So on May 8, the Manchester Fertility Services clinic plans to dispose of the couple's first batch of six fertilised embryos.

This will be followed by the other seven next year, they say.

The devastated couple are now calling for a change in the law and appealing to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to transfer the embryos abroad, where they can be stored for longer.

Michelle, 33, said: "To us, they have always been 'children-to-be' which, if they were strong enough, we were going to be able to see.

"If they were not strong enough, then that would be down to God or fate or whatever.

"But they are not even being given the chance."

Had the embryos been created because of other fertility problems, the couple could keep applying for extensions until Michelle was 55.