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Success after IF
IVFers - frozen emby question
I've wanted to get opinions on this for ages and just found this board and am hoping this is an understanding group to bring this up with! We were lucky enough to have 11 embryos of great quality. we implanted 2 and they both took, so we have 9 left that are frozen.
Now my husband is dead set against us doing anything with them besides giving them a chance at life. In his mind, the options are to implant them all in me or adopt them out to people that can't conceive. I can't live with either choice. I do not want 9 babies and could not bear the thought of having someone else raise my kids. In my mind, the frozen embryos are no different than other eggs that my body must've discarded over the three years of trying to conceive. Also, we had the two implanted after just 2 or 3 days (I honestly can't remember) as opposed to 5 days that some wait for. So they are each just 4 cells at this point.
For now, I avoid the conversation in hopes that we find a better solution down the road, but we can't freeze them forever either.
Anyone else find themselves in a similar situation or have any advice. Also, I realize that this can be a touchy subject for some about discarding a fertilized embryo, so please don't flame me for my opinion, just looking for others that can relate.
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Re: IVFers - frozen emby question
a) FYI, usually the preferred term is "transferred" over "implanted" simply because implanted implies that you're putting them into something and they're sure to stick. When really, the doc just puts those babies in a tiny spoon, and hopefully places them in the right place in the ute to do their thing. Splitting hairs, but some gals are pretty adament over that word choice.
b) what day were your embies frozen on, and what were their grade? What's your RE's statistics for thawing, TRANSFERRING, and live birth? this has TONS of variables, and could very well impact your decision. If they were all froze on day 1 and were less than great grade, they may not even thaw and you're arguing a moot (mood?) point. I don't know the stats on FETs with 4 cell embies... but I can't imagine they're that great. Why didn't they cook that many out to 5-6 days?
c) there are things such as putting some back at the most unfavorable time of your cycle. Technically giving them a chance, but a chance in heck. You can donate them to research, which is usually just the RE office using them for practice, etc. and NOT stem cell research. I believe in order to adopt out embryos you have to had completed a lot of (expensive!) paperwork prior, infectious diseases, genetic tests, etc. 1st, prior to retrival. I'm not sure that's even an option for you.
d) not to be snarky one bit... but didn't you guys talk about this prior, and sign papers with your RE on your intent? We spent about an hour talking about just such scenarios.
GL with your decision, and congrats on the twins!
Pretty much ditto to everything Davez said.
Normally only 50% survive thaw. There is also often cell loss, so those that survive may be damaged. There is no reason to expect nine more babies. Talk to your RE about this.
I'm also curious why the transfer happened so early. With that many embryos, it would be expected to push the transfer out to 5 days so that the best embryos could be selected. Also, good embryos normally have 8 cells on day 3, so I'm guessing you transferred on day 2. That is highly unusual and virtually unheard of with so many embryos.
As Davez said, I'm not trying to be snarky at all. I really mean that. There are just a lot of things here that don't make a lot of sense to me, so it's hard to even get to answering your question...
Huge congrats on your b/g twins!!!
i decided to donate mine. odds are, if you donate anonymously, you would never know if anyone ever used them, much less if anyone got KU from them.
it is a hard decision - GL whatever you decide.
I do realize the difference between transferred and implanted. Sounds like I came off a little uneducated, but I assure you I am not. Simply more engulfed in the world of gestational diabetes, getting ready for my c-section and planning on my twins, and haven't had to talk about IVF in so long that my exhaustion got the best of me.
I also realize that it is most likely that not all 9 would take if we transferred all of them, but that possibility does exist and so I have to go on the assumption that it could happen. Not that we would even transfer all at once. The rate of success for frozen embry transfer at my specific fertility center is 46.5%. I can't recall the exact reason for transferring on day 2 vs. day 5, but it was specific to my case and is not unommon practice to transfer between 2-5 days. 5 definitely more common, but with our center being in the top 5% in the nation with a 51% success rate, I counted on their expertise and it worked out well for me.
My husband and I did talk about this before hand, but he has had a change of heart, hence our position now. Obviously since we weren't planning to donate them at a later date, I didn't look into the procedures necessary for genetic testing or whatever was required at the time, so maybe that isn't even a possibility for us anymore.
GL to all of you.
I can definitely relate here... we had the same discussion. He never said anything about it during the IVF process and then when it came time to freeze them it came up...he felt they all deserved a chance at life. We had 5 frozen and I was like 'I am not having 6 children!'
Well... I would talk about how many kids you think you DO want to have... it is funny to me now how much time we debated over this and now are already down to 2 left. There really is no guarantee they will all take...chances are they all wouldn't. They might not all even make the thaw. So what we decided was to just see how it goes and when we are done having kids if we had any left we will open the talks again...but with two left I highly doubt we will need to have that talk now.
Best of luck to you!