After reading about cloning online, Karitas reached out to ViaGen to find out more about its procedures. At the time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to clone Baby. “It was a very heavy decision to bring a life onto this planet,” says Karitas. “I did not take it lightly—it’s like bringing a new member into your family.”
Karitas decided to proceed with genetic preservation. This $1,600 procedure would indefinitely preserve Baby’s DNA, in case Karitas chose to create a clone in the future.
To start the preservation process, a veterinarian took a tissue biopsy. The procedure removed a few small pieces of Baby’s skin. The samples were placed into containers holding a liquid that would keep the tissues alive while they were shipped to ViaGen’s Texas facility. Once at the lab, the samples were used to culture, or grow, millions of Baby’s cells. These were stored in a deep freeze at a temperature of about -130ºC (-202ºF).