Would you tell your IVF child that you discarded the extra embryos?

[Anonymous]

It’s a strange thing to fixate on. Are you perhaps Catholic or especially attuned to news media representations of reproductive technology? Because these are not the things typical women undergoing treatments have at the forefront of their minds.

You’ll be lucky to get one.

[Anonymous]

It seems like something that would never come up with your kids, unless you brought it up.

My very religious sister did IVF. I have no idea if there are extra embryos and even though we’re close l wouldn’t ask that - if she wants to talk about it l would, but l wouldn’t initiate the conversation.

[Anonymous]

Your body also discards of embryos when you're trying to get pregnant, sometimes so early you don't even know. Would you tell your kid about every miscarriage you had?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your body also discards of embryos when you're trying to get pregnant, sometimes so early you don't even know. Would you tell your kid about every miscarriage you had?

My mother told me about her two miscarriages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I’d just wait and see what happens. We got a lot of embryos (6), but only 1 resulted in a live birth (so very thankful). And then if you have extra, you can revisit the conversation. IVF was supposed to be easy for us, young, healthy, great stats and it was harder than expected and can be for a lot of women. I hope it’s easier for you.

Isn’t ending up with a lot of extra embryos the norm? What are the chances that we would only end up with one?

I dont think it's the norm - always weird that it's such a pro life issue as a result

We did three rounds of ivf for two kids and had no extra

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I’d just wait and see what happens. We got a lot of embryos (6), but only 1 resulted in a live birth (so very thankful). And then if you have extra, you can revisit the conversation. IVF was supposed to be easy for us, young, healthy, great stats and it was harder than expected and can be for a lot of women. I hope it’s easier for you.

+1 for most people very few are high quality embryos at the level worth freezing. We did 6 rounds and all were either transferred or not high enough quality to freeze.

Our kids have never once asked about unused embryos and they are teens.

[Anonymous]

I made over 50 embryos and only had 1 euploid each round. Nothing to discard.

[Anonymous]

We had 3 embryos. Two were implanted, one was left in the lab but didn't make it to day 5 so couldn't be frozen. The pregnancy resulted in 1 live birth.

[Anonymous]

We had six fertilized eggs; four started dividing, we transferred two on day 3; we let the other two try to get to day 5 for freezing but they stopped dividing on day 4.

We are extremely fortunate to have our amazing twins.

[Anonymous]

As someone who has had a lot of miscarriages, I can assure you that embryo doesn't equal baby.

And if you are in a position to need IVF, that is even more true with the very real possibility of abnormalities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have been trying to conceive for around 10 months and are starting to consider what our next step will be, and obviously IVF could very well be part of our future. Something that keeps entering my mind is a hypothetical conversation with our future child regarding having used IVF to conceive them. If we end up with additional embryos which is quite likely and choose to discard them, I don’t know how I would feel about sharing that with my child.
I have never heard this discussed before and I’m wondering what most parents do. I get the impression that most parents eventually tell their children about their origins, but do they share that info? Not with a young child obviously, but I could see a teen who is familiar with the process asking if there were additional embryos and what then? Is this something that most parents reveal?

Not obvious at all that you'll need IVF. You've been trying for 10 months and, from the sound of it, haven't met with a reproductive endocrinologist. You don't give your age, but progesterone support, IUI, medicated IUI, are just a few of the options that may be appropriate for you before IVF, and those other options do not result in extra embryos. Also, the topic of what to do with so-called extra embryos comes up frequently on this forum so if you haven't heard it discussed, you haven't been paying much attention (except perhaps to election news).

[Anonymous]

Our family is complete but we still have 10 embryos on ice because we can't take this decision. (I had PCOS so retrieved 35 eggs and and many fertilized; I know this is not common for other causes of infertility.)

[Anonymous]

I don’t owe my kid any explanation. My embryos, my choice. My kid doesn’t need to know any of our decisions family planning. They are a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I’d just wait and see what happens. We got a lot of embryos (6), but only 1 resulted in a live birth (so very thankful). And then if you have extra, you can revisit the conversation. IVF was supposed to be easy for us, young, healthy, great stats and it was harder than expected and can be for a lot of women. I hope it’s easier for you.

Isn’t ending up with a lot of extra embryos the norm? What are the chances that we would only end up with one?

I dont think it's the norm - always weird that it's such a pro life issue as a result

We did three rounds of ivf for two kids and had no extra

I've been on a number of infertility support websites where there are discussions regarding extra embryos and how long to freeze them for. It seems to be a fairly common occurence.

[Anonymous]

You can donate any remaining embryos to others or to science.

I do not think this is an appropriate topic to share with children. We don’t discuss the natural conception story. Unless a donor is involved, conception is a private matter between the parents.