FET... Day 3 or Day 5 embryo's.... What do you reckon???

Hi All

Just after some feedback to see which is the best way to go...

I am currently cycling for an FET in the next week or so for hopefully #2 child. My dilemma is the following..

I currently have 3 day 3 embryo's and 5 day 5 embryo's on ice. My DD was a day 3 embryo after having 1 fresh and 3 FET cycles of which we used 7 embryo's in total. I'm leaning towards using the day 5's this time (we are having 2 transferred) although the clinic is leaning towards me using the day 3's first.

The reasoning they give is that if the day 3's don't survive the thaw then we can still continue with the cycle using day 5's, but my thinking is that if I choose the day 5's and if we do lose any in the thaw process we always have some more to use. In our previous FET cycles we never lost any embryo's due to the thaw process so I am thinking that by keeping the day 3's on ice I sort of have a bit of a fall back position for any future cycles if they are needed.

I am also thinking that if we do have success with the thaw process for the day 5's then at least they are further done the track and might have a better chance of being successful, where the day 3's are still a gamble.

What do you all think... should I go day 3 or day 5 embryo's???

Did you try day-5 ones last time round? Some people seem to do better with one or the other
My clinic suggested thawing our day-3 ones and culturing them to day 5. 1 made it and is still going. DS was a blast too, so day-5s seem to work for us.

but, in answer to your question, I don't know....

I knew you would answer Marcellus.....hehe

We have never used day 5's before only day 3's... 1 as a fresh transfer which ended in a chem pg and then the 3 FET's which resulted in a BFN, ectopic and then a successful pg. The successful pg with Tara was a change in protocol for the cycle using clomid to imitate a natural cycle (with progesterone support) as the first 2 FET's where HRT cycles which didn't work so well. We are using the same protocol that we did for Tara as this seemed to work better for us so it now all comes down to which embryo's to choose.

Decisions, Decisions.....

Would be interested to hear what you decided Kelly. I'm struggling with a similar decision in terms of whether to aim for Day 3 or Day 5 embies.

I'm not sure I'd be so keen on transferring 2 Day 5's due to their higher success rate, but think I'd certainly go with 2 day 3 embies. I'm equally excited and terrified of the idea of having twins! Think you have a much better chance of ending up with 2 babies if you put to Day 5s back in.

Are you putting 2 back to try and increase your chances or because you'd actually like to have twins?

It's such a dilema this whole ivf business! So many decisions to make!

Hi - I missed your answer to this. What did you decide?
Maybe it'd be worth giving a day-5 a shot?

Hi Girls

Thanks for the reply's... After discussing with my DH we decided to go with our Day 5 embryo's this time around primarily due to the fact of not knowing what results we would get from a Day 5er as we only used Day 3's before and as we have more Day 5 in the freezer than Day 3's I thought that if we did loose any in the thaw we still have some in reserve.
Bea: For all my previous transfers (except for the first fresh transfer) we have always gone down the path of having 2 transferred, my FS would prefer to do 1 at a time but he is happy for me to have 2 done. So far we have used up 7 embryo's to get 1 baby, so looking at those odd's we have chosen 2 at a time to hopefully get 1 more although if we did end up with twins then DH & I are happy with that and then our family will be complete. As i'm not getting any younger my window is getting much smaller and due to early menopause in my family my FS has basically given me until I'm 40 to complete my family, so that's only 2 1/2 years from now.
I'll post in here and let you know what happens with the transfer and the hopeful BFP.

Will be watching for your news Kelly. :goodluck:
Wow, imagine 3 under 3... :o