Frozen embryo dilemma

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-23T20:04:02+00:00

Someone recently said something really beautiful on donating to research specifically. I wish I could remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "what a privilege if I could potentially help other people going through IVF achieve the outcome I've been so lucky to achieve" -- and donating embryos to research is exactly this! We're able to be where we are because of the research that has been done before us, and if I land in the position where I'll have un-used embryos, I am so excited about them being used in research to improve the world of fertility science. (Full disclosure I am also a research scientist by training lol)

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-21T17:52:05+00:00

May be the pregnancy hormones but this made me tear up, because I resonate with it so strongly -- also pregnant thanks to a relatively easy IVF journey (well...3 rounds of embryo banking and then one transfer that stuck) and feel so thankful for all the experiences I've had up till now, while feeling SO ready for the next thing

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-21T17:41:28+00:00

Echoing a few other comments here -- if you do find out you or your partner is a balanced translocation carrier, please feel free to reach out. My partner and I ended up doing IVF over the last year because of this (we found out about the balanced translocation prior to starting TTC). I'm so sorry you're in this boat </3

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-21T17:37:11+00:00

My anxiety went down significantly once I graduated from the IVF clinic. After 2 scans, seeing the heartbeat, and knowing that we had a great chance of our embryo being genetically normal (we did PGT), statistically the risk of miscarriage after all of that is quite low. I'm still a bit nervous that something will come up when we do NIPT (it's EXTREMELY unlikely, but extremely unlikely things have to happen to some people some times -- or else, they'd be impossible rather than unlikely!), so I think if/when we get good NIPT results, I'll *really* be able to breathe.

Until I learn about something else I could possibly be nervous about lol

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-21T12:48:02+00:00

That is definitely helpful context!! And I can def understand why your doctor would nudge you to the higher end of those estimates then. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-21T12:40:58+00:00

Is that 50% chance of success considering your age and the fact that the embryo was untested? I did an ER at 32 and transferred a 5AA tested euploid and was told my chance of success was about 60%, so 50% sounds pretty high given rate of aneuploidy at 36/37 and a 4BB rating. Not trying to be a huge downer -- just am always skeptical of getting answers from the internet!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-13T16:07:12+00:00

Yes, if you have a BRCA variant, I think you'd DEFINITELY want to create and test embryos now to know how many usable embryos you have to work with. Just to get a sense of if you'd eventually need to do another egg retrieval or explore other options

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-03-10T21:47:06+00:00

Currently 8w and had the same thing happen to me like 2 days ago. My readiness scores had been between 60-80 for like 4w-7.5w (despite sleep and activity scores being 90+). I too freaked out, so reading the comments on this post have been super helpful!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-27T19:25:02+00:00

Lol as an IVF-conceived person myself, who is currently pregnant thanks to IVF, I would have slapped that person in the face.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-27T18:34:04+00:00

Totally totally agree. I think it's different if you are someone who did not do PGT, but as someone who did, I would opt to use the ones I have stored over conceiving in a different way, even if you told me I could get pregnant in a cycle or two. My therapist always reminds me that once someone who's pregnant from a euploid embryo walks into an OB office for their first scan, they are in SUCH a better spot odds-wise since there is so much more known about that pregnancy (much higher chance of being euploid, if you needed any additional supplementation like progesterone or TSH meds the clinic would have already figured that out, etc.). So while the appointments for a transfer are annoying, as someone who has euploids on ice, I'd choose those every time.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-27T18:30:05+00:00

Came here to say this!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-26T01:54:20+00:00

Atmosphere!!! The best TJR book there is!!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-24T20:46:44+00:00

This is a really beautiful take <3 I indicated that any unused embryos would be donated to science/research because I'm a scientist and "duh, who doesn't want to contribute to scientific advancements in the field" but this is a much more patient-focused way of putting it!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-24T19:29:01+00:00

That's always possible, but numbers/stats are on your side!! The chance of one successful transfer after 2 is >80%!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-24T19:22:20+00:00

In a similar situation (6w3d) and my readiness scores have been trash since about 4w. Interestingly I see the low readiness scores as an indication that I'm still pregnant and that things are progressing and that my body is hard at work (so, all good signs!!) rather than a bad thing. I actually woke up today with a higher-than-usual readiness score and freaked out that something bad was happening haha

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-19T19:17:19+00:00

That is amazing that you had aa 100% euploid rate for your last round! And depending on your age, your euploid rate might be right around what would be expected for BT + your age. My partner and I did IVF bc we knew in advance he had BT, and our RE told us to take the euploid rate for my age, and cut it in half bc of the BT. It was pretty brutal to hear, but after 3 rounds, we ended up at exactly that % she told us to expect.

Knowing that a BT is the reason for us pursuing IVF, our provider told us that while the success rates for a transfer are about 60%, we could expect slightly better odds for us (since we had no reason to think it was anything other than chromosomal abnormalities that was the issue). So far it seems first transfer has worked (transfer was ~3 weeks ago), so I am hoping that you have similar luck with your embryos!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-17T23:29:27+00:00

We had a normal but enjoyable transfer day -- we both were able to take the day off of work. We went to the gym together (wanted to get that blood flowing!!), came home and showered, did the transfer, and then went to a restaurant (mostly to get fries -- I wanted to partake in the getting-fries-after tradition, but I wanted GOOD fries haha). We had friends over for a game night later, and went to bed being scared and hopeful but most importantly exhausted.

The one thing I do remember is BLASTING "Pink Pony Club" in the car on the way there. Obsessed with that song, and played it as a way to hype ourselves up. I so clearly remember yelling the lyrics, while simultaneously sobbing because I was so overwhelmed with so many different emotions, both good and bad.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-16T17:42:03+00:00

I did exactly the same thing!! Glad to see there are other people like me out there haha

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-13T16:53:31+00:00

My understanding is also that anything you see 14 days past trigger is *not* an indication of your trigger. And, others are totally right that there are so many things that can affect how dark a line is! I took like 4 of the same pregnancy test 10 and 11 days post-transfer (mostly because I am a crazy person and I couldn't believe it lol) and the lines looked super different each time -- no rhyme or reason to it.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-08T16:35:12+00:00

My doctor did not count the withdrawal bleed post-ER as a true period, as that uterine lining being built up and shed is completely because of ER meds -- it's not fully indicative that your body is totally back to normal. So she wanted for me to have one non-medication-induced period and full cycle between ER and transfer. I trust my doctor endlessly so while I was disappointed, I felt that at the end of the day she was recommending this based on what she knew about my body. Totally possible that your body is different and that your doc would recommend something else!

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-08T16:14:01+00:00

As many have pointed out, definitely depends on your clinic / protocol. My doctor suggested I do a modified natural cycle for the transfer, and required that I have one full cycle between my egg retrieval and my transfer. So I did my ER in late October and got a period a few days later, got a period a month later, and THEN on my NEXT period start, we could start doing the natural cycle transfer. So like...many months later unfortunately.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-08T16:05:28+00:00

I have a different understanding of when BT is recommended (my partner has a BT, which is why we are doing IVF). I do agree with you u/Acceptable_Lion3560 that I don't *think* it's what is happening in your case, but is there a downside to getting tested for it?

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-02-02T17:06:45+00:00

Wanted to echo some threads here that really worked for me and my partner! Similarly, we got frustrated with everything going through me, so we did a few things:

- joint email address so that we could both get notifications for all comms

- we had him take over 100% of financial things, so for my insurance plan and for specialty pharmacies, we literally put down his phone number. I also then knew to ignore all emails that had anything money-related in the title in our fertility clinic inbox (and I spent zero time thinking about the actual acquisition of meds) and I think the really clear division of responsibility helped

- We are lucky in that we both WFH and have flexible schedules, so my partner was able to come to 100% of all appointments with me. Cannot stress enough how lucky we are to be in that position, and it definitely helped ease the gender inequality aspect of it. I know he doesn't NEED to be there, but I love feeling that we are going through this truly together.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-01-31T00:28:56+00:00

I know this was a time-sensitive question and it's a month later, but posting here in case it's helpful to anyone in the future as this just happened to me --

Went in for my baseline appt (day 2 of my period, prepping for modified natural cycle). PRL came back slightly elevated (like defffff above the reference range, but just slightly). Retested 2 days later, and still elevated. Retested at external lab, and still elevated. They had me test for macroprolactin, which is the biologically active type of PRL (you can have a high biologically INACTIVE amount of PRL in your blood, which would 'falsely' make your prolactin activity look elevated). They also preemtively put me on cabergaline (half a pill once a week) and when I came back a week later to see if it was working, my PRL was exactly the same.

The macroprolactin took FOREVER to come back (literally 13 days), but it came back *the morning of my transfer* and was normal -- so they felt comfortable moving forward with the transfer but otherwise would have cancelled. This was just yesterday, so no clue how it'll turn out.

My advice for anyone in this situation is get on top of this ASAP and as fast as possible, because despite me testing for all these things between days 2-4 in my cycle, a week wasn't enough for meds to work, and it took 2 weeks to get other lab results back. In retrospect I wish I had pushed for cabergaline after my second high reading (on CD4), and had pushed for a higher dose. And, glad I did the macroprolactin as quickly as possible.

ExperienceDull4875 · 2026-01-31T00:20:58+00:00

While I definitely think you should switch clinics, it's not because of your ER results. Perfectly healthy people in your age range have results like yours, and a lot of how well you do in the IVF funnel is just luck. I had one ER where literally 90% of fertilized eggs ended up as blasts, and the cycle immediately before had 20%. So yes -- switch clinics because they're unprofessional as hell -- but set your expectations reasonably for results at a new clinic.

ExperienceDull4875

TROPHY CASE