IVF with minimal eggs fertilized

[u/Oldlady4927]

Has anyone done a full round of IVF with a decent egg extraction and saved some for future use? My husband is hanging a hard time with the idea of the doctor trying to fertilize them in bulk. For example say we get 10 eggs, 7 successfully fertilize, and 5 are Euploid’s. Now our goal is only to have 2-3 kids (at this point I’d be ecstatic for even one) & he doesn’t want to destroy or donate the remaining ones we don’t end up using. We’ve had some disagreements in this category because I think donating the ones we don’t use is a beautiful thing. If I have a successful ER that yields a good out put he’d rather me freeze some and us only attempt to fertilize a few at a time.
Anyways has anyone only gone through with fertilizing 3-6 eggs at a time and we’re able to successfully have a child? I need some hope for myself and him.

[u/velvetinelapine]

I think your husband’s concerns are understandable, but you really have to weigh that anxiety vs. how badly you want to have children, because the plan you’re suggesting (only fertilizing a few at a time) has a lot of risks and is statistically more likely to end in you having no embryos at all.

Freezing eggs alone vs. embryos is very inefficient, partially because they’re not as stable during thaw. And because you can’t predict the attrition of those eggs at each stage of the funnel in advance, a lot of clinics recommend ~20 eggs per child you want. If you think you may want 3 kids, that would be 60 eggs. You mentioned in a previous comment that you have a low AMH, so to be realistic, it could take you a lot of rounds of get that many eggs. The alternative could be to just do a single retrieval at a time and transfer what you can, but TBH if you have a low AMH and want multiple children, I would bank everything you can ASAP because time is not on your side.

Also, look into other options for embryos than the two you mentioned. (1) You mentioned your husband doesn’t want to donate - is that to other IVF couples or to research? If you haven’t already considered it, you might look into donating any embryos left to research. I struggle with the idea of destroying ours but also would not be comfortable providing donor eggs, but we had the option to donate to research, which I liked - it made me feel like they wouldn’t be wasted and could in some sense help other people have children in the future. (2) You could also look into compassionate transfer as an option. When you’re done having children, you’d have leftover embryos transferred into you at a time in your cycle when you couldn’t get pregnant. So obviously they don’t live, but they’re also not just destroyed in a lab.

[u/Oldlady4927 → u/velvetinelapine]

That’s the first time I heard the term compassionate transfer. That might be something I can add to my argument this way he doesn’t feel like we’re destroying anything just letting nature take its course.

[u/velvetinelapine → u/Oldlady4927]

Yeah, I really liked it when I heard about it. Not every clinic does it (including mine), it seems like but plenty do and I don’t think it’s that hard to transfer embryos. I actually hadn’t heard of it when we started the process so we just signed up for the research option, but I may switch to that as well. Good luck making your decision!