Thaw success rates

[butterfly_warrior]

Does anyone have info on expected success rates for thawing of frozen embryos, in particular blastocysts?

I'm not really finding anything, and just feeling a little bit concerned that only half of our first batch of embryos thawed. Is this normal? Should I expect similar with the second batch that are in the freezer now?

It's all a little bit depressing at the moment - my tendency towards hyperstimulating doesn't allow me to have fresh transfers.

BW

[Loula]

sorry to hear that you are feeling a little down regarding this at the mo - i have a mixed feeling about this the first lot of FE i had didn't do very well with thawing, and have had many mixed results ever since. for example the cycle i ohss on our thaw result was 100% (so far) we took two out and both thawed well, neither took to implant so i guess you could say its either luck fate or whatever you believe but i don't think OHSS or PCOS would make a difference???but i have been know to be wrong (would you believe it!!)

hope your feeling a bit more lifted soon xx

[Megan]

BW, I'm not too sure about blastocysts. My nurse and FS keep telling me there is an 80% success rates of embies surving the thaw. Unfortunately I have had much lower numbers than that. I had only 1 out of 4 thaw. Makes me very nervous going into my next FET with only 3 in the freezer.
I am very skeptical about all the numbers they give me these days and how they come up with them.

[sushee]

Thaw rates vary so much, but it is generally accepted that blasts survive the thaw better than Day 2 or Day 3 embryos. I had a loss of around 50% of my embies on average too, and I think that's pretty expected, I'm afraid.

[butterfly_warrior]

It's odd. Clinics that do day 2/3 transfers say day 2/3 embryos thaw better than blastocysts. Clinics that do blastocyst transfers say blasts thaw better.

One day my FS will say that the OHSS and PCOS are effecting my egg quality, leading to bad thaw rates, and then next time we see him, he'll say that I'm getting fantastic egg quality and the OHSS (in particular) isn't doing to me what it normally does!

Is it just me, or do they all seem to make it up as they go along? I guess the only way to find out how this batch will thaw is to wait and see.

BW

[Shannon22]

Just out of curiosity BW did your FS discussing freezing your embryos earlier due to the OHSS, last cycle when we couldn't go to transfer due to the OHSS. My FS decided to freeze the day after EPU, she explained that if this is done after ferilisation but before they start to divide you get a 100% thaw rate and you can grow to bast and then refreeze any excess. Apparently its the same as doing a fresh cycle because there is no cell damage. We will have to see if this is true when we do this But just though i'd share. But generally we got a 60% successful thaw rate on our blasts previously.

Hope yours behave and thaw nicely

[babydreams]

Hi BW we asked our embryologist the same question on Monday, he said that Blasts thaw at a better rate as they have more cells and can handle a little bit of damage during the thaw process. I am hoping that is the case

[sushee]

I've seen that too BW, that some say Day 2/3 embies thaw better, and others say blasts thaw better. But I've heard from a lot more places that blasts do thaw better, and for the exact reasons put forward by babydreams' FS. It makes more sense me too. But yeah definitely get the feeling they sometimes say what they think you want to hear, or make up an explanation to something that probably has no explanation because they can't really say they don't know!

[Acacia]

I think my clinic claims to have a 90% successful thaw rate with 2/3 day embies. This seemed really high to me, and I don't know what to think of it, only that I thought I would add it into the mix here in this thread because of the reason they give for their high rate: the quality of their embryologists and how good those embryologists are at thawing embryos.

So there seems to be a lot of factors in the differences between the mentioned thaw rates - quality of the embryo when it was frozen, how tough it is, quality of the egg, perhaps even quality of the sperm, whether it's a blastie or not and maybe you can add in the embryologist's skill at thawing now.

I don't think there's an easy answer, BW. I think it comes down to individual couple's situations, rather than relying on an average from anywhere.

Frustrating, isn't it? I hope you're hanging in there, bdub :hugs:

ETA - Oooops I just realised that this thread was in the LTAC section after I posted! Sorry for barging in I hope no one minds

[briggsy's girl]

don't fret miss_c - i'm sure no one is going to go crook - it's a general enquiry - and your answer sounds perfect for the question that was asked!

this question has been concerning me too - and i've been reading with interest. we only have four snow bubbas at the moment, and are looking to transfer two for our FET Feb/Mar - concerning that there might not be two to transfer - or that we have no embies left afterward! Scary thought!

[butterfly_warrior]

I had a discussion with the embryologist this morning - she said they can't really give an answer. They can calculate averages, but they usually have no bearing on what a particular couple will experience in a particular cycle. Fair enough, I suppose.

Early freezing because of the OHSS has never been an option - it's always been straight to blast and then freeze, because apparently I make good blasts - even when I hyperstimulate!

This could be giving things away before I'm ready, but I think I'm ok with it now. Today they had to thaw three to get one. They started with the two embryos that were frozen on day 5 - neither of them made it. The embryos that were frozen on day 6 are apparently a later stage blastocyst and the first of those came through thaw with flying colours. Maybe the more cells the more robust the embryo theory has a lot going for it - it certainly seems to have held true today.

So far I've had 6 day 5 blasts, and only two of them have thawed successfully. My day 6 blasts have a better record - one from one... I guess we'll see how we go from here. Hopefully I'll have a very long wait to find out!

Thanks for the help everyone. Strangely, I'm ok with losing two today. I was absolutely devestated by it last time, but I'm ok with it this time. I'm always a stress-head until we get past that stage - the rest is easy sailing from here, usually.

MissC, nobody's going to mind which section you're in - if you can offer an answer, go for it!

BW

[Cherie]

I'm weighing in a bit late on this thread ...

The scientist at my fertility clinic told me that they had a 75% thaw success rate. However we recently had a FET and were planning on having 2 embies transferred, leaving 2 in the freezer for a future transfer, or so we thought. Only 1 of my 4 embies survived the thaw (and resulted in a BFN) ... so for us we only had a 25% thaw rate. Next time we do a stim cycle I'm tempted just to tell them to transfer the lot - I've never fallen pregnant with IVF, stim or FET cycle, so I think my chance of multiples would be low.