Will demise of one embryo kill the others?
3 Replies
Frisbee Girl - July 29

Hello, Dr. Jacobs!
I'm on my third FET failure... we had 12 exquisite looking, Grade AA blasts on a fresh cycle 2 years ago, transferred 2, froze 10, and since then have been going through FET cycle after cycle, transferring 2, with failures. Actually, the first betas are in the 400's then double every 41 hours to the thousands, but sometime during that last part of week 5, I always miscarry them.

My question is... with how long it takes for my cycle to become normal again so that we can go through another FET, it's only allowing us 2 cycles per year, and at this rate we could be 3 more years going through our remaining 6 frozen embryos. So, we are thinking of transferring 4 next time. Do you think that if we transferred 4, and potentially 4 implanted, but say 3 were no good and miscarried, would that potentially take the "good" one that might be in that grouping of 4 with it down the drain? We are looking for any negative reason to not transfer 4, and the only thing we can think of is the possibility of multiples, which seems hardly likely since so far 6 out of 6 supposedly wonderful blasts have been duds, the likelihood of anything more than 1 or 2 of the 4 we'd transfer being any good is very slim. (And we are all for multiples if we can get them, anyway!)

Comments? Thank you so much in advance!

 

B. Jacobs, M. D. - July 30

The loss of 1 embryo implanted does not seem to effect another good 1. I would not recommend transferring 4. Quadruplets do not go to term, and you are at risk for losing all 4 in the nursery. As far as time after loss of a pregnancy before you can start again, it depnds on how long it takes for the pregnancy hormone, hCG, to clear. The half life of hCG is about 36 hours. The higher the hCG level, the longer it will take to bwe gone.
Good luck.

 

Zippy - July 30

Thank you! It just seemed to us that out of 12 supposedly GREAT blasts, the first 6 in a row were duds, so that's why we didn't think for a second that the next 4 would have anything but 1 good one in there, therefore quads would be totally out of the question (but perhaps twins would not, which would be okay).

With that in mind, you'd still not recommend putting in 4? I understand that when you transfer more embryos, they become sort of "cheerleaders" for the rest, egging them on (no pun intended) to implant.

Thoughts?

 

B. Jacobs, M. D. - July 30

We get our best pregnancy rates, without increaseing the risk of multiple pregnancy by transferring2 blastocysts.

 

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