We have similar religious beliefs and at this point in time we have a "no man left behind" policy regarding our embryos. Basically, we will use them all, and if we feel that we can not have any more children, any embryos unused at that point will be donated to another infertile couple.
After my first egg collection I started to panic a little when 26 eggs were collected. But only 15 of them fertilised and only 4 grew to blastocyst. All embryos were frozen at that point in time as I had quite bad OHSS. When I fell pregnant with the first transfer I started to panic a little. But I miscarried, sadly. Our next transfer had two embryos fail to thaw and lead to another miscarriage with our last remaining embryo.
If you are going to grow to blastocyst stage, the number of embryos drops off very quickly. If you have other fertility problems which are encountered during your course of treatment than things can become even more complicated.
Our second egg collection gave us 32 eggs. We froze 7 blastocysts from that cycle (an even worse case of OHSS) but only two of those were able to be thawed and used. One miscarried, the other just didn't work.
Final egg collection gave us 20 eggs, but we only managed to get three day three embryos. Two are frozen and one has grown into my 14 month old son.
It's hard to forecast how many eggs will be collected with each cycle. It's equally hard to forecast how many will grow to become viable embryos to transfer. It's good to discuss options, but difficult to set a plan in stone when so many things can change along the way.
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