Age 37 w/ DOR - Bank embryos?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone - Pretty sure I'm going to bank additional embryos, but want to crowdsource. I currently have 4 pgt tested male embryos that I froze last month. Ideally, I'd like one boy and one girl. I also have DOR, so I average 4-6 eggs per retrieval max. With this in mind, (1) should I bank more embryos before transferring, and (2) how many retrievals should I plan for? I previously froze my eggs, but want to keep those frozen for now.

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind there is more to fertility than just embryos. These treatments can make other conditions like endo and adeno worse which can mean you don't get pregnant. I would not undergo more cycles than you need. I would use the frozen ages and get started. By 36 I could no longer stay pregnant. I lost 6 pregnancies to get 1 live birth.

[Anonymous]

I was in a similar position as you. First retrieval resulted in only male embryos. With generally a 50% success rate even with PGT embryos, you may get 1 possibly 2 children from the cycle. We did a second cycle which got us 3 female embryos. It took 5 embryos to get our boy girl children.

I would recommend another retrieval.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind there is more to fertility than just embryos. These treatments can make other conditions like endo and adeno worse which can mean you don't get pregnant. I would not undergo more cycles than you need. I would use the frozen ages and get started. By 36 I could no longer stay pregnant. I lost 6 pregnancies to get 1 live birth.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1472648318306345

[Anonymous]

If you only wanted 1 would would say transfer. If you want more than one, definitely do not get pregnant, BF etc and come back at age 38. Even if you had good reserve that would still be risky.

[Anonymous]

I was pro banking before I did it myself. Banked four pgt aneuploid embryos at a cost of $40K oop and six months of time before our first transfer, which resulted in a live birth.
Went back for a second baby and the three embryos, for various reasons, did not result in a healthy live birth.
There isn’t a right answer here. You just don’t know if the embryos will take or what your body will do.

[Anonymous]

I would bank more embryos, by the time you try to implant the ones that you have it may be too late to get more embryos if you want more kids than you can get from the first round (I would ignore the gender of the kids - even if you only wanted boys I would give you this advice).

[Anonymous]

I would bank embryos. I know the cost is high, but this is your best chance to get the outcome you want.

[Anonymous]

How many cycles did it take you to get 4 embryos?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many cycles did it take you to get 4 embryos?

OP here. Thanks everyone for weighing in. The first cycle we got zero, and the four euploids came from the second cycle. Did a third cycle recently and got one more euploid (another boy). So we now have five embryos total, which I'm excited about. Going to try again in a month or so to see if we can get a girl. Thankfully, my insurance is covering most of the costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many cycles did it take you to get 4 embryos?

OP here. Thanks everyone for weighing in. The first cycle we got zero, and the four euploids came from the second cycle. Did a third cycle recently and got one more euploid (another boy). So we now have five embryos total, which I'm excited about. Going to try again in a month or so to see if we can get a girl. Thankfully, my insurance is covering most of the costs.

Those are decent numbers. There are some ways to actually sort sperm to shift the odds of getting a boy or girl embryos. Cornell did a study on this and the sperm sorting method resulted in 79% girl embryos (when selecting for girls). I’m not sure if they offer this to the general public, but you could reach out the clinic and see if they provide this service. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282216
The alternative option (possibly more risky option) would be to fly to Puerto Vallarta Mexico to use Microsort, a sperm sorting technology that is well established (and developed in Fairfax Va) but not offered in the US because the FDA felt there was no clinical need for it. If you go with the Mexico route definitely check whether your US clinic is willing to use the sorted sperm samples for another IVF or not. If your clinic is are not willing to use it then you would end up wasting in 5-10k to on a trip to Mexico/medical services for nothing basically.

[Anonymous]

Pretty good numbers for DOR. I also had it and did natural cycle. Got one egg and it worked ok the first try. The clinic was shocked. Good luck to you. I wouldn’t get too hung up on boy/girl.

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain why insurance covers additional rounds for sex selection? I’m curious. Is it because they cover X number of rounds or X number of embryos and that wasn’t hit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain why insurance covers additional rounds for sex selection? I’m curious. Is it because they cover X number of rounds or X number of embryos and that wasn’t hit?

OP here. Everything is covered up to a financial maximum set by the plan.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, the more parameters you're trying to control (e.g. sex of child) the more likely you're setting yourself up for disappointment. If I were you I'd get the number of embryos I think I need for the number of kids I want, regardless of sex.