Age of frozen doner embryos

shewolf576 · April 2013

OK darn it. No one else is sitting here feeling sorry for themselves so I guess I cant either. My RE thinks sooner is better than later so I guess we will be trying again in June or July.

I so wish I could do donor egg but me an DH talked and we really need to stick with something we can afford. So looking for another donor embryo. These donor sheets give you all the bad medical history and you kinda freak out about it after a while but I guess if everyone listed all the bad medical stuff in all their family it would be shocking.

How much impact does the length of time an embryo has been frozen have on its ability to work. I have a donor sheet that was frozen in 2003. That is ten years ago. But unlike the others where there is only 1, 2 maybe 3 embryos this one has 6 day 3. My thinking here is maybe 6 will give me a better chance of getting a good one....

What do you think??????????????????

liz4paws · April 2013

Glad you're trying to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. It's not easy, I know. You're strong, girl!

But don't let your RE push you into cycling before you're completely ready. Did he give you a reason why he thinks sooner is better than later? If it's not a good reason, you still have the choice to wait if you feel that's best. You're in charge of you and you know what's best for your mental health.

I hear you 110% on the donor eggs. It's one of the main reasons we chose to pursue donor embryos too.

Everything I've researched and understand is that length of time an embryo is frozen is not as influencing on the outcome as you might think. I have a friend on another board who is pregnant with her embryo which was frozen for over 14 years. However, the method of HOW they were frozen may impact an embryo's ability to survive thaw. In recent years, embryology labs have switched to a freezing method called vitrifcation which is a quick freeze method. This is much easier on the embryos than the old slow-freeze method. Many slow-frozen embryos do just fine and go on to make beautiful babies, but my understanding is they tend to not survive thaw as well. Hopefully someone can weigh in on this if any of this is incorrect, but this is what I've learned in our journey.

My biggest questions in considering donor embryo profiles would be:

Was an egg donor used to create them? (Donors can help success rates big time!)
Age of genetic mother?
On what day were they frozen? (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5?)
How many babies were born from these embryos or how many pregnancies ended in miscarriage? (I think FIRM lists this info on their donor profiles)

Quantity doesn't necessarily mean as much as quality but there are so many factors that go into this that sometime you just have to go with your gut. If you know the answers to my questions above, hopefully some of us could help give our opinions a little more clearly.

ETA: Sorry, just saw you said they were day 3!

shewolf576 · April 2013

Liz what do you think would you use them

my POF is stupid since I dont make the estrogen and progesterone on my own and have been on viville dot or similar since I was 13 he didnt expect a good lining. He believes my body was actually producing some on my own. I didnt even need any additional drugs to have an AF. yeah its complicated I am wierd.

I wil ask what method was used to freeze them. I am just kinda freaked of getting 2 and none thawing then its money down the drain. Here is what I know. ....

Female- Born 1969, 5'1", 155 pounds, br hair, blue eyes. 34 when embryos were created (no not donor) History of childhood ecezema, IBS controlled, mild depression and aanxiety, borderline anemia

Male- Born 1969, 5'7", 150 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes, 34 when embryos created, History of acne, deviated sepyum (corrected), otherwise healthy

children- twins 31/2 years old conceved from fresh transfer

6 day 3 embryos

liz4paws · April 2013

shewolf576:
Liz what do you think would you use them
my POF is stupid since I dont make the estrogen and progesterone on my own and have been on viville dot or similar since I was 13 he didnt expect a good lining. He believes my body was actually producing some on my own. I didnt even need any additional drugs to have an AF. yeah its complicated I am wierd.
I wil ask what method was used to freeze them. I am just kinda freaked of getting 2 and none thawing then its money down the drain. Here is what I know. ....
Female- Born 1969, 5'1", 155 pounds, br hair, blue eyes. 34 when embryos were created (no not donor) History of childhood ecezema, IBS controlled, mild depression and aanxiety, borderline anemia
Male- Born 1969, 5'7", 150 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes, 34 when embryos created, History of acne, deviated sepyum (corrected), otherwise healthy
children- twins 31/2 years old conceved from fresh transfer
6 day 3 embryos

POF shouldn't matter too much in this equation because of how much you are closely monitored during the whole cycle. Your meds are adjusted accordingly. Glad to hear you didn't need much! I can pretty much guarantee there were frozen as slow-freeze since it was 10 years ago, and that's okay! I wouldn't worry about the length of time they were frozen. I'd definitely consider them and it's promising that she had twins from the same batch. I think your options would be to take these now, wait to see if others come along that you like better, or maybe ask FIRM if they would combine two batches? Not sure if they do that or if you wanted to do that. Just throwing that in the mix.

Just clarifying, do you know if she's had any failed pregnancies from this batch? I think FIRM profiles show it as a ratio pregnancies/births that could tell you this...I could be wrong. Nothing that you said sounds terrifying to me.

shewolf576 · April 2013

no ratio and I will ask. And the monitor part surprised me because we checked lining and did transfer 5 days later. I only had to go there once for consult, once for lining and then transfer so its pretty quick. I dont think they will mix a batch. That is why I get worried about the defrost. Then the only time numbers were checked was at beta. So it was something that kinda worried me a little. Your in Texas how do you know so much about my clinic LOL.

I think these are our next frosties

liz4paws · April 2013

shewolf576:
no ratio and I will ask. And the monitor part surprised me because we checked lining and did transfer 5 days later. I only had to go there once for consult, once for lining and then transfer so its pretty quick. I dont think they will mix a batch. That is why I get worried about the defrost. Then the only time numbers were checked was at beta. So it was something that kinda worried me a little. Your in Texas how do you know so much about my clinic LOL.
I think these are our next frosties

I bet you that there haven't been any miscarriages unless they tried FETs after their fresh, then gave up. Which I highly doubt. So honestly, this batch of six sounds promising to me!

FET cycles are pretty simple as far as monitoring goes so it sounds like that's about right for your monitoring the first go-round.

I know about FIRM because I was interested in using them for a DEmbryo cycle back in the day, and also have a blogger friend who is cycling with them now. FIRM is pretty well known in the EA world as being a good inexpensive option with little to no waiting list for DEmbryos. I figured you were using them remotely, I didn't realize you were local there.

Let us know what you decide, and if you decide on them, let us know so we can get excited and jump for joy for ya!

Age of frozen doner embryos

Re: Age of frozen doner embryos

Choose Another Board

Search Boards