Anonymous wrote:We are happy to have 5 normal PGS embryos - they all turned out to be girls. The 3 abnormal ones were all boys. Happy to have 5 normal, but we always saw ourselves having at least one boy. Has anyone ever transferred an abnormal embryo? I know some doctors are really passionate about how PGS is flawed and I’ve read the New York magazine piece several times.

Just trying to gauge how common it is for people to knowingly transfer abnormal embryos, and if so what have been your outcomes?

Just the fact that you’re doing IVF probably means that things haven’t turned out the way you always anticipated they would. I couldn’t picture myself with anything but boys. After 3 failed IVF cycles, I finally had twin girls. Having twins, one of whom has special needs, cured me of wanting to have more children. I’m very happy with how things turned out and consider my experience to be a success story. Don’t get too locked in to preconceived notions of what your family will look like. Besides, in parenting, many things don’t go the way you have anticipated.

No way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want a boy that badly even if he's genetically disabled and handicapped? I know there are no guarantees in life but this seems a bit weird. There are many single gender families. I come from one. My parents consider my husband their son.Your daughters may have sons.

PGS abnormal embryos self correct and if they don’t women can do CVS.

I mean it happens but to hang your hopes on this scenarios while having viable embryos at hand is insane.

I would transfer abnormal embryos but only if I had no other option.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want a boy that badly even if he's genetically disabled and handicapped? I know there are no guarantees in life but this seems a bit weird. There are many single gender families. I come from one. My parents consider my husband their son.Your daughters may have sons.

PGS abnormal embryos self correct and if they don’t women can do CVS.

And then what? She does a CVS and finds out the baby has an abnormality and then she might terminate? Been there in terms of TFMR - would not wish it on my worst enemy. Years later and the trauma lingers (and we have two healthy children).

Anonymous wrote:OP, don't play God --- that is what you are doing by trying to orchestrate your family re: gender. Shame on you.

I think transferring the abnormal embryo is a terrible idea, but come on, playing god? Anyone who’s in position to choose an embryo has already made peace with that long ago.

Maybe it’s a slippery slope once you decide you can “play god” to get a child, where is the line? OP has 7 embryos, seven lives created, seven potential children, most of which OP will not allow to continue to live. IVF is confusing, the lines are blurry and the reasoning doesn’t make sense.

Anonymous wrote:You have FIVE normal embryos. Five.

It should be unethical for your doctor to transfer an abnormal embryo when you have so many healthy ones. . You and your DH are insane.

Anonymous wrote:You want a boy that badly even if he's genetically disabled and handicapped? I know there are no guarantees in life but this seems a bit weird. There are many single gender families. I come from one. My parents consider my husband their son.Your daughters may have sons.

PGS abnormal embryos self correct and if they don’t women can do CVS.

You want a boy that badly even if he's genetically disabled and handicapped? I know there are no guarantees in life but this seems a bit weird. There are many single gender families. I come from one. My parents consider my husband their son.Your daughters may have sons.

OP, I'm actually with you on the gender selection aspect (I get that that's an unpopular view here). Are these aneuploidy (i.e. all cells tested were chromosomally abnormal) or mosaic (i.e. some cells chromosomally abnormal, other cells normal)? With mosaicism there's also different degrees (what percentage of the embryo is estimated to be aneuploid) and outcomes vary depending on which chromosome is affected.

Make an appointment with a genetic counselor. If you clinic doesn't have one, get the details of which chromosomes were affected and how complex the mosaicism was for each embryo, and bring that information with you to the appointment. She will be able to give you far more specific information about how likely survival is for your embryos, and what you're risking with each, if the abnormal cells end up predominating. Many chromosomal errors are incapable of producing a baby - you will miscarry. In others, there could be a baby born, but depending on the chromosome the child may be severely disabled.

On the other hand, many healthy children are conceived naturally and only later found to have mosaicism. And up until very recently no embryos were PGS tested at all before transfer, so we were deliberately transferring some aneuploidy embryos along with euploid ones. This is still the case for fresh transfers and those who choose not to test.

OP, for what it's worth I would sit of these abnormal boys for now and do a second retrieval. Pay for the storage and you can always transfer them later if it still doesn't work out. I don't know how recently your 5 PGS normals were conceived, but if you can produce multiple healthy blasts you've got a real shot at getting a PGS normal boy or two in the next batch.

OP not a good idea for so many reasons. If it’s abnormal now at the cell level it’s only going to get worse. Don’t hang your hopes in a mosaic. You have what you have now which is a pattern of healthy females and abnormal males. You can’t change that for this cycle. I’m sorry. Hard choices.

OP, don't play God --- that is what you are doing by trying to orchestrate your family re: gender. Shame on you.

Ethically, I couldn't imagine any doctor doing this. They promise to "do no harm"- this would put them in the position of creating a pregnancy that either could result in a child being born with a very serious condition, or lead the mother to terminate it. The only time I've heard of a doctor allowing an abnormal transfer involved a mother with all abnormal embryos and they transfered one with just a sex chromosome abnormality. No way a doctor would do this just for gender selection.

Just to add my personal judginess, it makes me sad to think that someone cares more about the sex of the child than their well being. I know a lot of people are disappointed when they were hoping for that specific sex, but it almost always turns out that they "wouldn't change it for the world".

It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that all three male embryos are abnormal while all five female embryos are normal. Do you have the details of the abnormalities? If the genetic defect is related to gender (specifically affecting male only), then another cycle won't do anything. I don't think any clinic will transfer an abnormal once the testing is done. If it's a mosaic, then you can try and hope for the best.

Don't do this just to get a boy, OP.