We received the profile of a couple who have chosen to donate their remaining embryos yesterday. They did IVF in 2004 or 2005 and fell pregnant on a frozen transfer cycle, and also subsequently fell pregnant naturally.
The law in Western Australia is that you can only keep embryos for a maximum of ten years, and then need to make a decision as to whether you wish to apply for an extension (if you still have intent to use them and are of an age where that is still possible), discard the embryos, donate to science (which is not always a viable option as there may not be a suitable program approved at that time), or donate the embryos to another couple. My clinic has an anonymous donated embryo program, which is what we accessed two years ago for treatment.
There are a couple of different couples' embryos available at the moment but the clinic believes that these embryos are a good match for us. The female was 34 at the time of egg collection, they are of similar appearance to us, and have many other similarities such as one of them being a teacher, and both enjoying sport.
The only concern we have is that the embryos are frozen at Day 2 stage, which means they are only 2-4 cells. We originally had said to ourselves that we didn't want to try anything less than a blastocyst, but that wasn't the standard ten years ago when these embryos were frozen. The good news is that the couple fell pregnant with these embryos, and even better that they fell pregnant naturally which makes me think that there isn't anything wrong with either component, and perhaps it was unexplained infertility instead, or more to do with carrying the baby.
I have sent an email to the clinic coordinator to see when we can cycle with the embryos. As usual, my doctor is very conservative and will likely only approve us to transfer one embryo which I am not too concerned about - either it will work or it won't. Financially, it's poor timing, and I'm a little frustrated that we have to pay a fee that we have paid once before that we thought covered us for all future donated embryos we use (a freezing fee which I believe although dont know for certain, goes towards reimbursing the donors for the cost of freezing those embryos. I have emailed the CEO of our clinic to enquirer about the fee and if there is any chance of getting relief from it. In the end, we will pay it if we have to, but it is an extra $700 for nothing extra, and we distinctly remember that they said it covered us for all future donated embryos.
I'm trying not to allow myself to get too carried away, but I can't help it. I'm not anywhere near as excited as I once was years ago about carrying a child. I came to terms with not being pregnant a while back, and the thought of now having to do pregnancy and labour is sort of a weird thing. It's good, but yet, I've been so focused on adoption this last year that it all seems rather odd. One thing at a time though, we just need to get to cycle first, let the embryos defrost properly, transfer without any issues, and hope and pray.
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