When you’re building your family through surrogacy, all you want is to become parents as quickly as possible. While IVF with a surrogate can increase chances of success, IVF may need additional transfers before a pregnancy is achieved. .That’s why freezing more than one embryo at a time can help accelerate the process.
At this point in your journey to parenthood, you likely have embryos from previous IVF attempts, or are in the process of creating them for surrogacy. Having embryos ready or being in the creation process means you can be matched with a surrogate quickly. Connect with us today to get started.
How Many Embryos Do I Need to Freeze for Surrogacy?
Although there is no hard and fast number in terms of how many embryos to freeze, the more embryos you freeze, the better. In most cases, only one or two embryos are transferred at a time, and many fertility specialists recommend single-embryo transfers to reduce the risks associated with multiple pregnancies.
Once your embryos have reached the blastocyst stage (day 5) of development, your embryologist will grade your embryos to determine their quality. They will typically transfer one high-quality embryo, allowing the other viable embryos to be used later if the first transfer doesn’t take. This means you won’t have to go through the egg retrieval and embryo creation process all over again.
Even if you’re only transferring one to two embryos per attempt, it’s best to freeze as many embryos as possible to ready them for a potential transfer in the future.
Things to Consider When Deciding How Many Embryos to Freeze
There are many factors that could influence how many embryos you decide to freeze. To help you make this decision for yourself, we’ve detailed several of those factors so you can get a better idea of what will work best for your surrogacy needs.
Embryo Quality
If you have many high-quality embryos, then you should freeze as many of them as you can. The quality of an embryo is often determined through grading, and there are many different types of grading systems.
The fertility clinic you work with will have its own grading system that may be different from another clinic’s. Regardless, you’ll want to freeze those highly graded embryos to increase your chances of success.
How Many Children You Want
Think about how many children you want to have through surrogacy. This will also help determine how many embryos to freeze. A successful IVF process could mean you get multiple embryos, so you may want to freeze those if you want to have more children at some point in the future.
How Many Transfers You Plan to Attempt
The number of transfers you plan to attempt with the surrogate is another factor that you will need to consider. Freezing more embryos will allow you to make more attempts at a transfer in the future. If you have the budget to make multiple attempts, then it’s often a good idea to freeze more embryos just to be safe. Some IVF attempts take several attempts until one is successful.
What You Want to Do with Leftover Embryos
If there are any leftover embryos, then you’ll have to think about what you would like to do with them. Whether you want to keep them frozen for future family planning or simply dispose of them, it’s an important aspect to consider when you’re deciding how many embryos to freeze.
When you want to start or grow your family through surrogacy, we’ll be there for you every step of the way. Fill out our online contact form to get connected with a surrogate.