How Many to Transfer?

Throughout this process a super common question that both Josh and I have been asked is

"How many are you going to transfer?!"

I thought I'd do a quick post to address this as there are so many misconceptions about how the entire IVF process works and how transfer works. After we tell friends that we have 9 frozen embryos we have to giggle because it is surprising the number of people who think that they get transferred all at the same time! They ask us if we will end up like Octomom or something! I am relieved to say that it is pretty rare to transfer more than 2, SOMETIMES 3 embryos at a time.

Each of the embryos are frozen separately and therefore they are able to be thawed individually. The goal of my RE, and most REs out there, is to give the patient the best chance of a live birth with few to no complications. With that being said, most women have the best chance with only transferring one, sometimes 2 depending on the reason for the infertility.

In our case, it was recommended for us to only transfer one embryo unless we were dead set on two. Josh and I both thought about doing two, and we thought about the possibility of twins. It could be a lot of fun, and you get two for the price of one! BUT we decided that we wanted to do what our RE said was going to give us the best chance at a successful transfer and pregnancy. So far all of the steps that we have taken to get where we are have went according to plan and so hopefully one will do it!

I have learned that just because you transfer multiple embryos it does NOT increase the success rate of the transfer, instead it just increases the chance of multiples. Furthermore the more embryos that you transfer the greater the chance of complications throughout your pregnancy if they all implant successfully.

The thought of carrying twins scares me, especially because of my health history. I don't really want to carry two babies in my belly at one time anyway! Ha! And the thought of actually raising twins in the beginning is also really scary... first time parents responsible for TWO lives. You also have double the cost of everything all at one time and that within itself is intimidating!

So with all of that being said, we decided to only transfer one embryo. If, for some reason, this little embaby doesn't make it, it may be recommended to transfer two, but we will always go with the doctors recommendation of what will be best for us! If we are ever blessed with twins, we would be scared but absolutely overjoyed at the opportunity!