My clinic wants to discard my 3BC and 4BC embryos

[sirensong]

I realise 3BC and 4BC embryo grades are poor but I feel sick about them being discarded tomorrow if they don't somehow improve, because I didn't get many in total (just one other - a 5AB). Apparently the clinic would maybe transfer if a fresh cycle but don't want to freeze.

What is the policy at your clinic? I've seen success with this grade searching online, which is very distressing. However low the chance might be after thawing it's going to be more than zero.

I would 100% question this and ask what evidence this is based on, and if you can request an exception. An I’m 23 weeks with my 3BC after my 4BB didn’t stick. I also have a 2BC frozen. And was told the clinic only freeze good quality!

Sorry you’re going through this :(

@Sierra26 that's amazing, congratulations!

This makes my situation even more bleak. I will plead for an exception. Do you mind me asking which clinic you're at? Did they freeze automatically without any special discussion?

Mine (just done an FET) is a 4Bc and they said that's a good grade so I'm confused by this! Did they give any more info or can you ask for it? I hate that they give all the info over the phone as I was so lost when they were telling me, I wouldn't know what they discarded only that I had to trust them that none of the other 9 were suitable for freezing :(

@Ginny91 They just said they're below the standard that they freeze. When I said that was devastating they didn't have much of a reply. Sob.

Today was day 6. Yesterday one was a day 5 3BB and the other was a cavitating morula. I'm regretting not getting them to at least freeze the 3BB but at that point they were positive and describing it as good quality. It was left in culture overnight to expand for PGTA testing.

They're calling tomorrow with an update and I'll beg them to reconsider.

Very best of luck with yours!

@sirensong my treatment was with Chelwest Fertiity Centre.

Are your lab grading them as normal but using a different system to decide on freezing quality maybe? I have to ask for the grades, they weren’t going to tell me.

Mine were frozen on day 5, wasn’t any talk of going to day 6 but we weren’t doing any testing as this was first round. I had quite a big drop off rate each day, went from 21 eggs to 3 embryos. But they froze everything that made it do day 5, the others had all arrested before then.

Wishing you luck for today x

My clinic absolutely did not discard BCs.

In fact, they always said grading is subjective. My best rated, day 5 6AA tested aneuploid.

@Sierra26 thank you. Hoping to find out more today.

I also had a big drop off. 20 eggs retrieved but this was a bit misleading as only 9 or 10 were from follicles at a size where maturity would be expected - they took all of the ones from small follicles too on the offchance. So when I was initially told 6 had fertilised that didn't hugely surprise me. However apparently another 7 eggs matured overnight in the dish culture and 4 of them fertilised late. So on day 3 I had 10 - x3 were rated good, x3 average and x4 poor. The 3 good (6-8 cells and no fragmentation) were the ones that made it to blastocyst.

Thank you. Did that include ones that would be frozen?

@sirensong yes! I have a EUPLOID day 6 5BC embryo. Once they're confirmed euploid grading really matters very little. Imagine if it had been discarded...

@sirensong just to add, and another day 7 5BC which is a high level mosaic

My clinic also discard anything with a C. It's worth remembering that embryo grading is a little subjective. It may be that our clinics are a bit generous in gradings.

If your clinic will transfer grade Cs in fresh transfers, they will have their own stats on the success rate - it may be worth asking about these.

I had a 3CC EUPLOID embryo, and it's in the freezer. You should definitely try to keep them.

My DS was either a 3BC or 4BC can’t remember. I had 2 other FETs before him that were “better grades” which failed, including a 5AB. I’ve still got one 3BC in the freezer. My clinic only discarded one of mu embryos that I think was a CC.
I hope you have success with this round, but don’t give up hope, I wasn’t expecting my last FET to work as it was a low grade.

Gently OP, I think you need to trust that your clinic are the experts on this, and they are doing it for the best reason. They are not just saying this to hurt you or to prevent you getting pregnant. They are saying it because those grades are extremely unlikely to survive the thawing process and go on to result in a pregnancy, and much more likely to result in heartbreak and pain for you.

I have been through this journey too though, so I completely understand and sympathise, and am saying this with the greatest care. It feels so desperate and you really, really want that chance. But as laypeople, we don't know better than the embryologists.

If they thought there was a chance of those grades working, they would recommend them to be frozen.

I do agree with @sotif about euploid embryos, however if you haven't had PGT-A testing (I assume you haven't) there is no way of knowing this, so you can't take it into consideration.

@cheezmonster I didn't mean to say that hers is definitely euploid because mine is, just that... there's a CHANCE of euploidy with these grades! And if they're euploid they have a good chance of sticking so why not give them a go

I understand. I just think that we're not really qualified to say 'why not give them a go' unless we are embryologists or experts in the field.

At the end of the day as a patient/ layperson you just have to trust your clinic. If you don't trust your clinic to make the right decisions, then you need to move to one that you do trust.

Doing anything else just increases false hope. On top of the emotional rollercoaster that this journey already is, it's not particularly helpful for anyone to question the decisions of people who know a lot more about this than any of us.

Sadly from my own experience, I can't agree with this statement "I think you need to trust that your clinic are the experts on this, and they are doing it for the best reason." One clinic has let me down so badly, I am going through legal procedures.
If OP you have doubts, at the very least you should get a second opinion from a different clinic.

I can't tell from the context if the embryos have gone through PGT-A. That's also a consideration, PGT-A test is cheaper and faster than FET.

In my first IVF round, I had 6 blastocysts but untested. I went through 1 fresh transfer and 2 frozen transfers and they all failed, and the transfers took 6 months. I then had the remaining 3 moved to another clinic, thawed and tested. One didn't survive the thaw, out of the remaining 2, one is epuloid and graded 3CC (grading was either 3CC or 3CB at the first clinic I think). It's still in the freezer at the moment, so I can't say it led to success.

@moerae @cheezmonster In my experience in life generally including IVF (and this is purely MY experience, other people may and probably do have different views and experiences) you can't fully trust "professionals" because no one is as invested in your own interests as you are yourself. Check, double check, do the research, ask the questions.

@sotif @moerae I'm not really saying that you necessarily can trust them - but they have more information and experience than (most) patients do, so ultimately you do not have much choice.

From my own experience of IVF, going down rabbit holes of research and trying to understand things better than the professional embryologists at the clinic, never brought me joy or resolution to anything, it only brought me misery and distress.

I also had a terrible experience of a clinic and changed to a different one.

If you feel you don't trust that your clinic is making the best decisions for you, for whatever reason, then you should consider moving clinics to one that you can trust. Whether or not certain embryos are suitable for freezing is a decision you should be able to trust your clinic to make.

The onus should never be on you as a patient/ layperson to question their decisions - if you are having treatment, then you need to trust them. If you don't, you need to go elsewhere.

In my experience they are only professionals to a point. My clinic refused to transfer 2 of my lowest graded and I basically wouldn't take no for an answer ended up having twins. Trust your gut. I reminded my clinic that at the end of the day it was my money and my decision: tell them you want the two C grade ones transferring

I wouldn't discard a BC embryo. If they definitely don't let you freeze the BC, I would do a fresh transfer of the BC embryos and freeze the best one.