You have the option to froze those "left over" embryos. If this cycle does not work or if later on you wish another child, you will be able to use those frozen embryos.
But, not all embryos are good enough to be frozen. It depends, if you are doing a 3 or 5 days transfer. In my 2 cycles, I did a 5 days transfer and my doctor wants to froze blast only (5/6 days embryos). and none of my "left over" embryos reached this stage. I always ended up transfering all the blasts I have. (2 in cycle one and 1 in cycle two)
Just for your peace of mind, if your embryos are not developping right to be at the blast stage after 5/6 days, it means they are not strong enough and will never make a baby.
I know it is heart breaking, when I talk about my embryos I always call them my/our babies and it really hurts to know that most of them will be "discarded" by the lab...

I just did my first cycle of IVF and I'm in my two week wait. I had to sign a number of consent forms prior to IVF. On the consents was a number of choices on what to do with any embryos. We had the choice to freeze them, discard them or donate them. Didn't you have those options?

i do have all of those options...but either way i go i still have to deal with either throwing them away or giving them to someone else. like i said, if i donate them then i will have to live with the fact that i have kids that i will never know. it is just not as easy as everyone says since i believe that those little embys are living beings.

I absolutely agree with mathilde. I struggled with it too. But, according to my RE if they were not okay to freeze then it was because they probably would not survive any ways. It is still hard. It is up to you to donate, if the embryos are suitable. But I think even to do that they would need to be frozen.
I felt my childres died when they put to embryos in me that did not make it and I felt that way about the other embryos not suitable for use. My RE told me once that many women concieve and never know it because the embryo is never strong enough to make it or implant. The only reason so many of us know about chemical pregnancies is because we test so early due to the fertility treatments.

I can't say for sure if the embryos we do not use would make it to be a baby or not. I do know they could not be frozen or I would of done that.

But I don't really know how you come to terms with it. I guess each of us is different and needs to make peace with it on our own.

I can see what you mean, I have never been in your posistion but try to think about this.... if you can donate your eggs, if youre not going to use them yourself i would donate them ( easy for me to say Im not in your shoes I know). the reason I say I would is because I may have to use a donar egg. If I continue to miscarriage that is what my Dr suggest. Now I could use one of my 3 sisters eggs... they have all offered but I think that I would rather use a donar egg from a mother i dont know because if I use my sisters everyone will always know that it is her egg not mine and I dont want my sister feeling like she gave me her child if that makes any sense. i know they say they wouldnt feel that way buy youre proof of that feeling, those are your eggs your babies.

I would rather use the eggs of someone I dont know because then I dont have to worry about someone thinking that my baby is really their baby.

just imagine the gift your could give someone. You would not be abandoning your children by any means. You would be giving them a chance at life with another women who like you has had trouble having a child who would cherish that child as you would, what an AWESOME gift to have the power to give.

If I have to use donar eggs I may never know the real mother... but i would be forever thankful for the women who gave me the gift of life... you can do that and I think that is awesome!

I had 5 viable embies when I did my transfer. We put 3 back in (only one took) and we were going to freeze the others incase the first one didn't take. I was against destroying them. Well it turned out that the embies died on their own before freezing. I feel like that was natures way of saying even if you transfered all 5 back that only one was going to take anyways.

Just because they fertilize, doesn't mean that they will continue to grow and develop. Just like if they fertilized in your belly the natural way. If they are not sustainable, they either don't implant or you miscarry.

Don't worry about something you don't even know if you will have to deal with in the first place. There is enough stress associated with IVF to worry about.

I truely feel God had a plan for my embies and that is why he took care of the two we didn't transfer. We didn't destroy them, God just took them back.

Good Luck.

This is a really good question, Erin I can understand you being conflicted. I am not at that stage yet but the gut instinct of my husband and I will be that we donate any embryos that we can. If we can help another couple have a family that is as wanting as us to have one it will be a beautiful thing. All the way around, the child is very wanted. Best wishes to you while you think over your options.

i am doing trial med cycle now to get ready for a donor IVF cycle in january.just listen to some of the women on here how badly they want a baby and remember that whoever gets those donated embies are women just like us that want a child so despirately and would cherish that child more than thier own for what they have had to go through to get it. you don't just go to the donor stage you have to go through IUI's and IVF's that have all failed and experience all of that heartbreak month after month. you could have the chance to make a huge difference in some couples life. you could be thier angel.

I am in my first cycle of IVF. We too had to sign a bunch of forms and decide what we wanted to do with our embies as well. We are going to freeze the extras and when we are done expanding our family then we will allow our embies (if we have any left over) to research. Do you have that option?

DH and I were concerned about this as well. I also received the same info that others are sharing on here from my RE about freezing and that some embies might not make it to freezing. I agree with the others, that it all happens for a reason. DH and I have had this discussion and if we did get pg with IVF and had any embies that made it to freezing we would keep them with our RE to hopefully use at a later time. I think the cost at my center is $600/year to continue to freeze them.

I will being signing my IVF papers on thursday. When I read about the option for unused embryos, I too had a bit of a struggle. If for some reason I end up with extra embroys that I don't want to use - I will donate them. After all the struggles me and my DH have gone through and after talking to so many people on DS - I couldn't distroy them. I wouldn't want to know if a child results. The thought that another couple (maybe even someone on DS) could become a parent because of my embryo is a comforting thought.

I thought my DH would have a problem with donating them but he was all for it. He said we've relied on so many others for support and help. He'd prefer the chance of a family being created than destroying such a precious opportunity.

Hope I've given you another way of thinking about it.

Whatever you end up doing - I wish you all the best.

The criteria for embryos to be transferred or frozen is much more complex than I originally realized. For IVF I had 16 fertilized eggs: transferred 2 and froze 3. That seemed like a huge attrition rate to me but the RE said no, my percentage was actually quite good. So I had a long talk with the embryologist at my clinic who explained some of the finer points,how embryos develop in the lab, how they choose which one's to use and why. It's fascinating. I'd recommend speaking to your clinic's embryologist, bringing up your ethical issues, and seeing if he/she can give you the info necessary to make decisions you can live with. My clinic uses non-viable embryos for research as it is a teaching facility. As for donating viable embryos: there's an awful lot that would have to happen before you'd ever be faced with that decision. Again, I'd discuss it with the expert, the embryologist.

We just did IVF and decided to freeze what was left. I can't imagine someone else using our embryo and we'd have other children out there! It's a personal choice but I wouldn't have done it; in the end we didn't have any left to freeze anyway

We wanted to freeze ours and use them if this IVF failed or later. We have one struggling one left and if it is not a blastocyst today, there will be nothing left to freeze. Only 40% of women have anything left to freeze.

Zayannee said it perfectly for how I felt giving up the remainder of my embryos. I felt like I was giving someone who wanted a child as badly as I did the chance. I did think about the fact that I may have a child out there that I may never know. But the gift of giving someone else the opportunity to carry a child far outweighed that.