What are others considering for leftover frozen embryos

Question

I am and have been struggling with this for some time.  My husband I went through ivf and have a beautiful 21 month old little boy.  I had an appointment set up last January with the clinic go use another frozen embryo, and we discovered we were pregnant on our own. I am expecting in i August and had a lot of guilt over getting pregnant naturally Bc I had thought I would use one of our frozen embryos.  Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly thankful I do not have to go to all the appointments and do all the shots.  We have four embryos frozen for the past 2 years.  We are most likely completing our family next month with 3 children and I have 4 frozen embryos leftover. If my husband gave me the okay, I would have them ALL.  I seriously struggle with giving them up to someone else. I have heavily considered a “compassionate” transfer (when the eggs are transferred in a point in your cycle you are highly unlikely to get pregnant).  It will cost over $1k to do this. I haven’t brought it up to my husband just yet but wanted to seek some advice.

Answer

This is such a hard thing to think about. It’s honestly been on my mind since we froze our four embryos. It’s such an incredibly emotional and hard decision to make. I go back and forth all the time on what I might be comfortable with and don’t have the heart or energy to talk with my husband about it since our family is not complete yet. Please know that you are not alone.
One thing I didn’t see you mention was the possibility of donating the embryos to science. Would that be a possibility for you? That’s crossed my mind as an option to.

Answer

I’m not sure if we will have any left after we try for our second child (we only have 2 frozen), but this is also something I struggle with. Our doctor told us the donation to a study is not a viable option because studies aren’t looking for embryos right now, so the options left are a) keep them frozen indefinitely b) donate them to another couple/person c) destroy them. 
A) I don’t see the point of this besides not having to make a decision. 
B) As much as I LOVE the idea of helping another couple, being an adoptee has me torn on this. Growing up with the possibility of having half siblings out there I didn’t know about was hard, and this would be my child’s/children’s full biological sibling. It is quite similar (FOR ME) to giving a baby up for adoption, because if the embryo implants it’s going to become that fully biological sibling that we never meet. My husband is all for donating. This would likely be the route we go, but it’s going to take me working through it to get there. 
C) I honestly can’t imagine destroying embryos after how much we went through to get them to be, and how excited we were seeing that picture of the embryo about to be transferred, calling it an “embaby.” 
Basically, I have NO idea. I know people have vastly different views on all of these options but I think it’s a difficult decision regardless.

Answer

Curious is you didn’t have to address this before you retrieval?     I had to sign a contract each cycle saying what would happen with any embryos unused.   Even to the point of if I die and my husband lives he can use a surrogate for any remaining frozen.     Once that was signed and notarized there is no changing it.

Answer

I 100% plan on donating them to someone who needs them if we have any left over. I know how hard it is to want a family and I’d love to help someone else have that dream also. As a Christian I can’t imagine donating them to science or especially destroying them. That seems to close to abortion in my book. I will choose to pass on a blessing to someone else if possible. Who cares if your kid will have siblings out there they will never know about.

Answer

We have 3 frozen, and haven’t made a decision on what to do with them although I’m pretty sure my husband isn’t going to want to donate them as we’ll have biological children in the world we don’t know about and who could come and find us when they reach 18. However, as I’d been through chemo we really didn’t think we would be successful in creating our own embryo’s so I looked into embryo adoption, it’s so heartbreaking as there are loving parents out there who so desperately want to be pregnant and birth their own child and simply can’t, that have gone through rounds and rounds of IVF, has losses and after years of infertility treatments are now looking at this as their only option. There is such a huge waiting list for embryo adoption in the UK it’s unlikely they’ll ever have the chance. I’m an organ donor, for the reason that I would without question help to save a life if they needed something that I didn’t. I believe if I can help someone create a life and a family and bring joy after so much desperation, why wouldn’t I do that? I would want someone to do it for me.

Answer

I’ve thought about this as well. We have 4 frozen embryos and we’re only having one via surrogacy. Because it’s so expensive. If the first transfer works then we’d have 3 left over. We also have 5 mosaic ones too. We don’t want a biological child out there , and a full sibling to our future child. 
It’s hard to figure out but the only thing is to thaw and toss them. The thought of that is horrible and I know I’ll end up crying. 
We lost a daughter who was born still a year ago. So to know we have embryos there it’s heartbreaking.

What are others considering for leftover frozen embryos

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