Community› The Bump Message Boards› Success after IF
Success after IF
New Discussion

XP: Egg Banking

Mayan2011Mayan2011 member
in Success after IF

My home board is IF, but I am looking for some advice and thought some ladies here might have input. 

Has anyone had the egg banking conversation with their RE? I am thinking of bringing it up when DH and I go in for our next appt in a few weeks. I think I would like to do a round or two to combine with a fresh IVF. We have a low fert rate and it is the only way I can think of that will give us more embies and, therefore, move us to a 5dt.

What brought this about? Last IVF we ended up with one frostie. It came from an embryo that was graded quite poorly on day 3 when we did our transfer. If we waited until day 5 I think the embryo selection for transfer would have been different, but of course we will never know for sure. It is a scenario that keeps playing over and over in my head.

Anyway, just wondering what your RE thinks about this and if you know what the thaw and fert rates are on frozen eggs.

Thanks.

Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Report Reply to Post

Re: XP: Egg Banking

  • Temp848906437505510Temp848906437505510

    Maybe I'm missing something, but, why freeze eggs when you can freeze embryos?  The thaw rate on frozen eggs is much less than embryos.

    Report Reply
  • Loading the player...
  • Mayan2011Mayan2011 member

    My DH works 3 weeks on and 3 weeks away (2500 miles away).  So it is really hard to time a full IVF cycle with my body and his work schedule.  Also, he has severe MFI so freezing semen isn't an option for us.

    I didn't know that banked eggs had a poor thaw rate.  It is definitely something that would need to be considered.  We are just trying to find a way to increase our chances - we have only had about a 65% fert rate between the two IVFs, which isn't great.  Also a round of egg banking is cheaper than a full IVF.  So if the thaw and fert rates of frozen eggs was comparable to fresh then it would make sense to bank and combine with a fresh. 

     

     

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
    Report Reply
  • ladychicagoladychicago member
    I am not sure freezing eggs would help you at all. We just did a cycle with frozen eggs, so I have been down this road and have had this conversation with my RE. Eggs are much more difficult to freeze and have a lower successful thaw rate than frozen embryos. It took them 5 eggs to get 2 that survived the thaw for us, and that was with my healthy 28 year old eggs (we are MFI- low count). But using frozen eggs wouldn't improve your fert rate (since that is usually a sperm and/or egg quality issue, which freezing could only harm, not help), and you would still have to schedule DH to provide his sperm on a very specific day, so that aspect of the cycle wouldn't change either. It is always worth asking about, but given your specific concerns and issues, it doesn't jump out at me as a good solution. Hopefully you guys are able to figure something out soon! Best of luck!
    Brought to you by IVF, ICSI, limited fert, and oocyte cryopreservation.
    Because we're fancy like that.

    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
    Report Reply
  • Mayan2011Mayan2011 member

    imageladychicago:
    I am not sure freezing eggs would help you at all. We just did a cycle with frozen eggs, so I have been down this road and have had this conversation with my RE. Eggs are much more difficult to freeze and have a lower successful thaw rate than frozen embryos. It took them 5 eggs to get 2 that survived the thaw for us, and that was with my healthy 28 year old eggs (we are MFI- low count). But using frozen eggs wouldn't improve your fert rate (since that is usually a sperm and/or egg quality issue, which freezing could only harm, not help), and you would still have to schedule DH to provide his sperm on a very specific day, so that aspect of the cycle wouldn't change either. It is always worth asking about, but given your specific concerns and issues, it doesn't jump out at me as a good solution. Hopefully you guys are able to figure something out soon! Best of luck!

    Thanks for your honesty and sharing your experience.  We knew the option was out there, but didn't know much about it, and didn't know how viable (or non-viable)of an option it actually was.  Of course, like everyone who is dealing with IF, we are just looking for ways to increase our chances.  It is looking like this option might not be the best choice for us.

    If you don't mind sharing, with the low thaw rates, why did you choose to go that route?

    ETA:  Added the question.

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
    Report Reply
  • ladychicagoladychicago member
    imageMayan2011:

    imageladychicago:
    I am not sure freezing eggs would help you at all. We just did a cycle with frozen eggs, so I have been down this road and have had this conversation with my RE. Eggs are much more difficult to freeze and have a lower successful thaw rate than frozen embryos. It took them 5 eggs to get 2 that survived the thaw for us, and that was with my healthy 28 year old eggs (we are MFI- low count). But using frozen eggs wouldn't improve your fert rate (since that is usually a sperm and/or egg quality issue, which freezing could only harm, not help), and you would still have to schedule DH to provide his sperm on a very specific day, so that aspect of the cycle wouldn't change either. It is always worth asking about, but given your specific concerns and issues, it doesn't jump out at me as a good solution. Hopefully you guys are able to figure something out soon! Best of luck!

    Thanks for your honesty and sharing your experience.  We knew the option was out there, but didn't know much about it, and didn't know how viable (or non-viable)of an option it actually was.  Of course, like everyone who is dealing with IF, we are just looking for ways to increase our chances.  It is looking like this option might not be the best choice for us.

    If you don't mind sharing, with the low thaw rates, why did you choose to go that route?

    ETA:  Added the question.

    We froze my eggs because we prefer not to freeze embryos for religious/moral reasons. So with our first IVF cycle, they got 13 mature eggs, fertilized two (the max number we were willing to transfer back) and froze the remaining 11. That cycle gave us our daughter. At the time, it was sort of a long shot back up plan, since my large university based clinic had never had a successful cycle with frozen eggs. But, fingers crossed, our cycle worked when we went back for #2, and we may just be the first live birth with frozen eggs for my clinic.
    Brought to you by IVF, ICSI, limited fert, and oocyte cryopreservation.
    Because we're fancy like that.

    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
    Report Reply
  • Mayan2011Mayan2011 member
    imageladychicago:
    imageMayan2011:

    imageladychicago:
    I am not sure freezing eggs would help you at all. We just did a cycle with frozen eggs, so I have been down this road and have had this conversation with my RE. Eggs are much more difficult to freeze and have a lower successful thaw rate than frozen embryos. It took them 5 eggs to get 2 that survived the thaw for us, and that was with my healthy 28 year old eggs (we are MFI- low count). But using frozen eggs wouldn't improve your fert rate (since that is usually a sperm and/or egg quality issue, which freezing could only harm, not help), and you would still have to schedule DH to provide his sperm on a very specific day, so that aspect of the cycle wouldn't change either. It is always worth asking about, but given your specific concerns and issues, it doesn't jump out at me as a good solution. Hopefully you guys are able to figure something out soon! Best of luck!

    Thanks for your honesty and sharing your experience.  We knew the option was out there, but didn't know much about it, and didn't know how viable (or non-viable)of an option it actually was.  Of course, like everyone who is dealing with IF, we are just looking for ways to increase our chances.  It is looking like this option might not be the best choice for us.

    If you don't mind sharing, with the low thaw rates, why did you choose to go that route?

    ETA:  Added the question.

    We froze my eggs because we prefer not to freeze embryos for religious/moral reasons. So with our first IVF cycle, they got 13 mature eggs, fertilized two (the max number we were willing to transfer back) and froze the remaining 11. That cycle gave us our daughter. At the time, it was sort of a long shot back up plan, since my large university based clinic had never had a successful cycle with frozen eggs. But, fingers crossed, our cycle worked when we went back for #2, and we may just be the first live birth with frozen eggs for my clinic.

    Wow.  Congrats!  I would like to borrow your horseshoe if you are all done with it! ;)

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
    Report Reply
  • MBandBudMBandBud member
    imageLBR_NJ:

    Maybe I'm missing something, but, why freeze eggs when you can freeze embryos?  The thaw rate on frozen eggs is much less than embryos.

    We, too, froze eggs instead of embryos because of moral and religious reasons.  We limited our fert to five which gave us 2 embryos and our daughter.  We froze the other eggs because I had great response and it froze time for us.  We are also now not left with having to decide what to do with an embryo; just eggs.  In our mind this is a HUGE difference.  I have also seen too many posts of people who have had children via IVF not sure what to do with all of the frozen embryos they have.  In your case it might not be the best option, but it has/can be done.  My clinic does this a lot for patients that are about to undergo chemo. 

    GL to you on your journey!

    Report Reply
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"