Sunday, June 10, 2007

THE SECOND TRANSFER

After the recipients transferred one embryo and it didn't take they decided to thaw the remaining two embryos and transfer both at once. We were fine with this, since we were mainly trying to avoid contributing to needless disability should they transfer three embryos at once and have all three take.

When the recipients thawed the last two embryos, only one survived. It grew to a grade B, 4-celled embryo. That is the exact same size and grade of the embryos, from two different egg retrieval batches, which resulted in our son and daughter. Since all of my embryos to date had reached grade B, 4-cells (except the first embryo the recipients thawed), we had hope that this embryo would result in a baby for the recipients.

Unfortunately, that hope was unfounded. The transfer did not work. The recipients did not get pregnant from the embryos we donated to them. We wish we had more embryos to offer them so they could try again, but we only had three left over.

Erin, the recipient who tried to get pregnant for two years through insemination and then using my embryos, felt she had "let us down" by not getting pregnant with the embryos we gave her and her partner. But I told the recipients that the benefit of using a donor is you can blame any problems on him or her.

In this case, the eggs with which the embryos were created were 37 years old, which isn't the freshest. I told the recipients that it was certainly my old, musty eggs that caused the problem, not Erin.

We are sad we could not help these wonderful women become mothers. They are now pursuing other options. Of course, if you have some spare eggs or embryos lying around, let me know and I will pass the information along to them. You could not find warmer, more loving women. We hope their child will come to them soon.