IVF question

[Tammy Wondra]

Hi everyone! This may seem like a dumb question, but I've heard conflicting information and was wondering what was right. When they retrieve the eggs, how many do they retrieve? I've heard they retrieve 12-15 eggs, put them with sperm, insert the "best" 2-3 ones and then depending on the clinic, disgard, donate or give to science the rest of the eggs. Is this true? We're thinking about doing IVF and was wondering more about that.

Thanks so much everyone!!

[brekkemdb]

I think every lady is different in the number of eggs they produce with their IVF cycle. I personally produced 26 and that is how many they retreived. At our clinic it was up to us how many we wanted fertilezed--we had to sign a consent form at our orientation visit as to what we wanted. We had all of them fertalized--we ended up with 12 perfect embies after fertilaztion. 2 were transferred and we are 22 weeks pg. We have 10 embies on ice waiting for us. : ) Hope this helps a bit.
bridget

[sassynlv]

Tammy: No dumb questions here! The # of eggs retrieved varies greatly depending on the individual, age, aggressiveness or protocol, etc. The RE (reproductive endocrinologist) retrieves as many eggs as appear ready (as seen by size of follicle). for example, during my 1st IVF, 6 were retrieved, but during my 3rd IVF, 16 were retrieved (my RE found a protocol that worked better for me). Unfortunately, there are no guarantees w/IVF. At my clinic (which i think is pretty common), all eggs retrieved are fertilized and grown to blast stage (often there is a significant % that stop growing along the way). 2 or 3 are then transferred back into the uterus. Any extra blasts can be donated or destroyed, but i think most women have them frozen for future use (if the first transfer doesn't work, then they can be used for a FET (frozen embryo transfer). If the first transfer does work and you have a baby, they can be used to get preg w/a #2 baby. Hope that helps.