4 fertilised- day 3 or 5 transfer

[Roo45]

Wondering if I could ask others advice or experience. We have 4 eggs that have fertilised, the embryologist is going to call me tomorrow and we can decide re day 3 or 5 transfer. In my previous 2 cycles we have had day 5 blasts but mainly poor quality, only 1 good one that didn't implant.
However in both cycles we had more eggs fertilise then this time around (8 fertilised last time) I'm in 2 minds if all 4 look good tomorrow (generally on day 3 most have been ok and quality reduced by day 5) if we pick one at random and push for day 3 transfer or wait until day 5 but the risk being we might not have anything good quality to transfer, the flip side is if we pick one on day 3 that was never going to be good quality we might not have any to freeze on day 5 which we could have had as a fresh transfer if we hadn't don't day 3.
Does that make any sense? Xx

Hi @Roo45 it's so tricky, I can only say in my experience we had 2 fertilise, the clinic therefore advised a day 3 transfer. But I felt I wanted to wait to see if any got to say 5, I reasoned it was better for us to know if that was possible or not rather than transferring on day 3 and always wondering. I had quite a frank discussion with my consultant and she said it's unlikely that transferring on day 3 would make an embryo that wouldn't make it to day 5 any better. So we waited. 1 made it to day 5, it was great quality but sadly didn't implant. I can only tell you what was right for us, you should go with whatever your gut is telling you x good luck x

I had an in depth discussion with the consultant on my first transfer about this. His view that if it wasn't going make it in the lab then it wasn't going to make it inside me either and I agreed with that view. However I had two 5AAs from that cycle, one fresh transfer and one FET but both ended up as chemicals. Moved clinics, only got one embryo so transferred it as a day 3 and that cycle was successful. There is an argument that the best place is inside you but it does depend on how they look on day 3. If I had several in the running I think I'd wait until day 5, if there was only one that stood a chance I'd transfer on day 3.

If I was in your position , I would wait till day 5 personally , just so I know that I waited the longest I could till day 5 and that’s a normal time to put them back anyways and if Any of them are still surviving on day 5 then there is good chance that they can implant . I personally wouldn’t bother doing day 3 because If it wouldn’t make it outside your body then it won’t make it inside your body too , in my opinion .. even if there is none left on day 5 then you’ll know that they would have not survived anyways inside your body , so you’ll save time stressing and wasting money . but if a day 5 embryo fails then at least you know that day 5 is maximum time before they put them back in anyways so you could have not done anything different but hope . Xxx

Thanks for your advice everyone xxx

It's funny how much clinics differ on this - my clinic rarely cultures to Day 5 if you get less than 5 eggs fertilised, as they think some embryos do better inside the body but wouldn't have made it to day 5 in the lab and they don't want you to risk losing them all. They typically transfer two 3 day embryos instead - if you are about mid thirties or older apparently two 3 day embryos give you about the same chance of pregnancy as one 5 day blastocyst (but I'm not sure what happens if you are younger, it might raise the chance of twin pregnancy too much then).

I never got more than 5 eggs fertilised in both my cycles so most of my embryos were 3 day (they cultured 1 to day 5 and transferred it but it was a BFN). I'm now 6 months pregnant with my 3rd IVF transfer - a fresh one using two 3 day embryos and I have two more 3 day embryos frozen (only 1 took but obviously none were PGS tested so I don't know if the others were euploid or not- probably not very likely at age 40)

3 day!

Thanks everyone- my embryos were of varying quality so they put the best one in at day 3. Xx

I'd go for a day 3 transfer, I had a day 3 transfer and my clinic suggested it as the embryos are better off in your body than a lab.

I would wait until day 5 (and that is my plan for this cycle), but ask your consultant, they should be able to advice you based on your medical condition.