What to do with frozen embryos

[DaisyMay25]

Hi, I had a successful ICSI cycle in April 2019, I gave birth to my son in December 2019. Before and after him I've unfortunately had miscarriages, the one in July 2020 was a missed miscarriage so had to have it removed.
From our cycle we have four frozen embryos, I had pre natal and post natal depression with my son and in pregnancy had anxiety so bad I couldn't leave the house. Given this and the miscarriages I'm pretty set on no more.
We pay yearly to keep the embryos frozen but unsure what to do with them?
Has anybody had this decision to make with frozen ones? Would like to know what option you took

I have one left and said to my gynae I would wait a bit and then probably destroy or donate to science, as I'm pregnant with twins at the moment fingers crossed. However she told me to keep it for a while as she thinks the law will shortly change to allow them to be used as a source of stem cells...? Seems quite far fetched but we probably will pay storage for a bit. She said until our kids are in school and over the most vulnerable time for childhood illness.

In your shoes I would probably keep them a while and see if my perspective changed. Storage is relatively much much cheaper than making more after all.

Have you considered donating the embryo to another couple? I wouldn’t be able to destroy an embryo (but that’s just me) it has a lot of moral implications having ‘your’ child brought up by someone else and isn’t a decision I’d take lightly but that would be my preference over anything else

I had IVF that resulted in DD in 2019 and then last year DS came along after a spontaneous pregnancy. We only ever wanted 2 and if we had of wanted more DS would've sealed the deal at sticking at 2 . This left us with 1 frozen embryo and a decision to make. I didn't want to destroy it and I didn't want to donate what could potentially be our child and a full sibling to my two to an unknown couple whose background I didn't know and who's character I'd never be in a position to judge so we decided to donate to medical research in the hope that our embryo could help other struggling couples like us improving IVF success rates via research. I received a letter after making the decision to donate giving details of different research programmes that were underway and the one I've chosen is a stem cell project to aid treatment of childhood cancers. Whilst I'm not claiming to have found a cure for cancer I do feel pleased that our very microscopic contribution of an embryo could help in someway shape or form (if this makes sense).

I have 2 left having had twins last year - realistically I'd only have one more child and that's if DH agrees (although he was ambivalent about extending the storage for another year and I thought he'd definitely say no never again 😂)

I personally wouldn't ever donate them to another person or couple - I fought for these embryos through 5 cycles and I have moral and ethical personal issues surrounding use of donors. So that would leave giving them for research - I feel a bit funny about that - I don't know why - maybe looking at my twins I wonder what they'd be like given a chance and couldn't imagine them being tested on I suppose?

I think id rather they just returned them to me and I could perhaps take them to the memorial garden where the babies I lost to miscarriage/ectopic are - I don't even mind transferring them but it not working

This plays on my mind so much. I have a 19-month-old, I'm 17 weeks pregnant, and I have 8 frozen embryos remaining.

I realise I must have won some sort of IVF lottery to be as lucky as I've been, but this is a real problem and I'm very emotional about it. I just look at my son and wonder what if he hadn't been the embryo chosen?

The thought of discarding him (or someone I'd love as much as him) is too much. The thought of him being experimented on is also too much (and yes, I understand that's hypocrisy and that nobody has benefitted more from research than me). And I could never allow my biological children to live who knows what kind of life with unvetted people whilst their full siblings live quite privileged lives with us.

I'm currently minded to pay storage indefinitely. DP is unlikely to go for that though.

@Holskey I can completely see where you are coming from. I feel "lucky" in a way that as things panned out we only have one left and it has a low grade. Even though it was shit at the time transferring embryos only for them to fail, we gave 9/10 embryos a chance at life. We did have an additional 4 which we pgt tested which all failed so I have to accept those were destroyed as per the rules going into that process. The mad part of me would transfer that last one, in the knowledge it would probably fail. But the sensible part does absolutely not want 4 children!! 3 was always my stretch goal, I'm pregnant with twins and all have a toddler, I'll be 40 soon, I feel so lucky and I know the sensible thing to do is destroy / science if I'm feeling noble. Unless something goes wrong with this pregnancy. Quite glad in a way my gynae told me to hang on to the one I have for possible stem cells for the others, that's at least a positive reason, and by the time that doesn't make sense anymore I will def be too old to transfer it.

@Holskey I have exactly the same thoughts as you. What if they had chosen a different one? Of course I would have loved that child just as much but it haunts me a little. We have 3 left but we are pretty content with our lot in life so we’re not actually sure we want another. If we didn’t have any left then we wouldn’t try again but sometimes I feel like we should give these ones a chance.

OP - there have been a couple of threads on this before if you do a search. There are lots of ideas. Given the choice I would want to bring them home and plant something. I have no idea whether that is allowed or not (I’m not in the UK). Failing that I think we would donate to research.