weird one- freeze in middle of the incubation?

gatorlorit

I'm not sure anyone would have ever had this experience, but I'm frustrated, confused and not sure what happens next.  I had an egg retrieval on Sunday,  and they got 12 eggs. I got  a call on Monday saying 11 fertilized.  They told me not to expect a call until Saturday-  they would freeze all Friday and call Saturday.

Here's the wrinkle- I live just outside Orlando,  and hurricane Matthew was threatening us majorly. I started my period Friday and called as I was supposed to, but the office was closed for the storm.  The on call nurse called back today, and I asked for an update on the embryos.  She said she would get one and call me back. Five hours later,  she called.  Apparently they were concerned about the power going out,  so they froze my embryos on Thursday (day 4) and are going to defrost on Monday and see if they keep growing.  I told her I was greatly concerned as I know there is a risk to freezing and refreezing,  and no one had advised me what was going on. She said she would have the weekend doctor call me, but of course that didn't happen.  Apparently the doctor called other patients to advice them this was occurring, but I never was told. Oh, and on top of all this, I don't even know how many were frozen on Thursday.

I understand a hurricane is a crisis, but how did they do this without my consent? And honestly, how do you operate a practice in Florida without a better plan in place?  My embryos were day 4, and now are subject  to a freeze, thaw,  and another freeze. And honestly, they have to defrost and then keep growing??

This is such a stressful time anyways,  and this is just making it worse. I'm terrified that this whole cycle was for nothing. I'm trying to stay positive, and failing right about now.  Has anyone heard of anything like this?!? Any ideas on how to not go nuts while I wait?!

tiffanyw1783

Oh my! I've never heard of doing this. I think you're right, they should've had plans in place for situations like this. This is definitely not the first hurricane to hit Florida. I hope you get answers soon. Have you tried calling back to talk to whomever is on call?? My RE office has a nurse on call 24h and they answer most of the questions anyway.

Ange15

Hello. I've never posted before but I thought maybe I could offer you a little reassurance.  

Because of my borderline AMH, I decided to do two cycles of IVF prior to my first FET. This was what my RE recommended in order to have enough embryos to have 2-3 children (hopefully).

After my first cycle we froze all fertilized embryos at day 1. After my second retrieval we thawed the embryos from the first cycle and grew them to day 5 with all the fertilized embryos from the second cycle. My embryos were then biopsied for CCS testing and frozen again. (This was done in this way in order to save some money on the CCS testing). All the day 1 embryos survived the freeze/thaw. We ended up transferring an embryo from my first cycle and again it survived the freeze/thaw. This procedure is pretty standard at the clinic I use and they assured me that less than 1% don't survive the thaw.

Trust me I understand your concern (and I know our situations are a little different) but in my (limited) experience the freezing technology is really advanced and they rarely lose an embryo. Best of luck to you!

gatorlorit

@tiffanyw1783-  the poor nurse got more than she bargained for when she had to tell me that. She told me she will have the doctor call tomorrow- -and he's my least favorite in the practice.  The nurse was great, but she can't explain why the decision was made, and seemed to agree with me that I should have been told what was going on ahead of time.

@Ange15 .  Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know that!  It was definitely reassuring to hear that... I had never heard of defrosting and growing more, and knowing it worked for you was such good news!