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Using your embryos at all costs, donating them to science, keeping them while waiting to make a decision, each situation is personal and leads to discussions within the couple. Three mothers testify.
“I feel guilty for not using the frozen embryos”
assemble, 42 years old, mother of Habib, 8 years old.
Aith my husband, Sofiane, we started medically assisted procreation (medically assisted procreation) in 2005 because we could not have children naturally. We quickly turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the inseminations did not take. Habib was born during our second IVF, from a fresh embryo transfer. Two years later, we tried again. Habib wanted a little brother or sister and with my husband we had always wanted to have two or three children.
I got pregnant via transfer, but quickly miscarried
We didn’t give up, even though it was very hard. I had an ovarian puncture again in October 2019 which was extremely painful because I had hyperstimulation. About 90 oocytes were punctured, it’s huge and I could feel everything. Four fertilized embryos could be frozen. We attempted the transfer later in February 2020 because I needed some rest. But there was no pregnancy. Psychologically, I don’t know why, but I felt it wouldn’t work. My husband really thought that I would get pregnant the way it had worked before, even if I had miscarried.
A new transfer was planned for July, but I turned 42. The age limit for taking charge, and for me, it was too risky, because my first pregnancy had been complicated.
42 years old was also my personal limit. Too many risks of malformation for the baby and of health for me. We made the decision to stop there. Having a child is already a huge chance, especially since it took us ten years to succeed!
We still have three frozen embryos left
So far, we haven’t made a decision. We are waiting for the mail from the hospital asking us what we want to do. We can keep them and repay them every year. Or destroy them. Or give them to a couple or to science. For the moment, we keep them until we know what to do.
I feel guilty for not using them, because maybe the next transfer could have worked… I do not wish to give them to science because in my opinion, it is a waste. My husband, he thinks it would be good to advance the research. But we could also give them to a couple. Lots of people need an embryo. Even though I’ll never know if it worked, because the donation is anonymous, deep down inside, I would think that maybe my child is somewhere. But Sofiane does not want it. So, since we both have to agree, we give each other time.
“We will donate them to science, destroying them would break our hearts”
Leah 30 years old, mother of Ellie, 8 years old.
With my partner, we had our very young daughter Ellie. We were not in the process of having a child. When we decided to start a second baby, we left ourselves a year… Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. After several examinations, we had the verdict: we could not have another child naturally. The only solution was to do in vitro fertilization (IVF).
The first transfer with a fresh embryo did not work.
As a second fertilized embryo remained from the puncture, it was vitrified (frozen). We had signed an authorization to give our agreement. But that worried me a lot, especially since it was our last embryo of this puncture. I was really very stressed, my partner a lot less. In fact, we are not sufficiently informed in real time about what is going on, what the thawing stage is and what the potential risks are at this time. Vitrification optimizes thawing because, according to studies, only 3% of embryos do not survive. But doctors aren’t very talkative about the quality. We are constantly waiting to know if the transfer is going to be possible or not. Will the embryo hold on to thawing? Psychological follow-up is not systematically offered and that is frankly a shame.
Medically Assisted Procreation (ART) is already a very long and complicated journey, for both women and men.. So adding expectation and uncertainty is really painful. It can also create tension in the couple. In our case, it is my husband who cannot procreate naturally and he feels guilty about all that I have to endure medically.
The transfer of the second frozen embryo did not work either.
We are not giving up hope. We will continue, I always wanted a big family. I thought I would have two more children besides our big daughter, but the difficulty for this second child traumatized me to the point of not wanting more after this second. I secretly cross my fingers to have twins and we have prepared for that eventuality. The following ? We still have tests, we will continue. If the next transfer works and we have frozen embryos left, we will donate them to science. Destroying them would break our hearts, but we don’t want to donate them to others. These embryos are a piece of both of us and being adopted myself, I know that the search for oneself and where we come from is very hard, and I don’t want to see a child ring our doorbell for us one day. to know.
“I feel obligated to try everything to make them live! “
Lucy, 32 years old, mother of Liam, 10 years old.
My son Liam was born from a first union. When I got together with my new companion, Gabin, we decided to have a child. But it didn’t work naturally and we discovered medically assisted reproduction (ART), more specifically, in vitro fertilization (IVF). The first try was very hard because I over-stimulated. First, I had to inject myself with hormones to stimulate my ovaries. And very quickly, I was very swollen in the lower abdomen. My ovaries were full and I had trouble sitting up. The doctors thought that it would decrease during the ovarian puncture which consists of removing the oocytes. But in fact not at all! I had to go to the emergency room the day after the puncture because my stomach had doubled in size. I was at maximum forced rest, I had to lie down as much as possible, wear compression stockings and I had phlebitis bites. It lasted several days, the time for the water to drain and the pain to subside. I didn’t mean to say that I was in pain so that I could have my fresh embryo transfer a few days later.
The desire for a child was stronger than the suffering!
But, after ten days of waiting, we learned that it had not worked. It was hard to take because I was very confident and I thought it would work on the first try. My partner was much more reserved. We gave our agreement to freeze, more precisely vitrify the other embryos. But the new transfers didn’t work either. In total, I did four IVF and fifteen transfers, because there can be several transfers by IVF, as long as there are fertilized embryos. In all, I only did a fresh embryo transfer. Then it was directly my frozen embryos. Because my body reacts too much to the treatment, I am still hyperstimulated, so it was becoming dangerous and I needed rest between the puncture and the transfer. Concretely, we are called by the clinic the day before to give us the time of the transfer and, unfortunately, it can happen that during the thawing the embryo dies, but that has never happened to us. Fortunately. It is the doctors who choose which embryos to transfer, from the best to the lowest quality. For me, it doesn’t matter if the embryo is frozen, it’s a straw!
Today I have three frozen embryos.
The last one we tried in January 2021 didn’t work. But we will continue! If I ever get pregnant, we haven’t thought about what to do with the other embryos yet. It’s difficult to project yourself! I would have a hard time giving them to someone knowing the hardships we went through to have them. So I think we will give ourselves time to think about it to know if in the process we will try a new transfer with the frozen embryos that we have left. I can’t imagine not using them. I would feel obliged to try everything to make them live!