GHOST - success with frosties?

[jbird30]

Hi Ghost, it's been a while and I have and I have an important question for you about a topic that you brought up about a year ago...

To my recollection, you had provided some research about clinics who were finding high success rates when saving the best quality embryos and using them during frozen cycles. I liked your reasoning about having your body kind of get back to normal after all the meds and hormones and such.

In my own experience, I had two grade A, day 5 embryos transferred last year. No luck. Three months later, we transferred our one remaining frostie, grade BB I believe and it worked. However, I miscarried at seven weeks.

Then, by the ultimate stroke of luck, we got pregnant on our own. However, it only lasted about a week or so (my beta went from about 68 to 140, to 190, 198, 202...) so that was that.

So, I approached my doctor with the idea of having me go through a cycle, make lots of eggs, hopefully fertilize a good number... and freeze all of the embryos. Then, in a few months when I feel less like a bloated blowfish, start putting them back in, one or two at a time. He is definitely willing but really wants to implant fresh first. I asked him about other clinics finding higher success rates when waiting to use the best embryos for frozen transfers, but he said he wasn't familiar with that. The success rates at this clinic with frosties are lower, between 30-40%.

So my question to you is - do you think this is a good idea and should I stick with my gut to try it this way? Are there clinics still finding higher success rates with this, and could you possibly point me in the direction of finding additional info and research? Of course, if anyone else has any info about this, I would so appreciate it!

Thanks so much!

[Ghost]

Hi Ghost, it's been a while and I have and I have an important question for you about a topic that you brought up about a year ago...

To my recollection, you had provided some research about clinics who were finding high success rates when saving the best quality embryos and using them during frozen cycles. I liked your reasoning about having your body kind of get back to normal after all the meds and hormones and such.

In my own experience, I had two grade A, day 5 embryos transferred last year. No luck. Three months later, we transferred our one remaining frostie, grade BB I believe and it worked. However, I miscarried at seven weeks.

Then, by the ultimate stroke of luck, we got pregnant on our own. However, it only lasted about a week or so (my beta went from about 68 to 140, to 190, 198, 202...) so that was that.

So, I approached my doctor with the idea of having me go through a cycle, make lots of eggs, hopefully fertilize a good number... and freeze all of the embryos. Then, in a few months when I feel less like a bloated blowfish, start putting them back in, one or two at a time. He is definitely willing but really wants to implant fresh first. I asked him about other clinics finding higher success rates when waiting to use the best embryos for frozen transfers, but he said he wasn't familiar with that. The success rates at this clinic with frosties are lower, between 30-40%.

So my question to you is - do you think this is a good idea and should I stick with my gut to try it this way? Are there clinics still finding higher success rates with this, and could you possibly point me in the direction of finding additional info and research? Of course, if anyone else has any info about this, I would so appreciate it!

Thanks so much!

There has been some recent research like that:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21737072

That one is not in print yet, so perhaps your RE has not seen it yet.

[Ghost]

Another one like that:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21315339

There have been several.