If you’ve been going back and forth about what to do with your remaining frozen embryo or embryos on ice, you’re not alone. I’ve had years of, ‘Let’s transfer another…Actually, no, it’s time to let them go.” We referred to them as my son’s ‘siblingcycles,’ just in jest, but didn’t know what we were actually going to do with them. It brought humour to a somewhat heavy decision for some people.

It’s a part of the fertility journey that requires decisions that have major implications emotionally, ethically, and financially.

If you have an embryo or more frozen in your clinic and have a living child or children, this is normal to go back and forth. It’s also normal if you don’t have a living child but you’re done for personal reasons.

All avenues that lead you here are valid.

First, here are some implications for your decision that you may or may not have already thought of.

Financial implications

Frozen embryos cost a storage fee to have them take up that tiny space in a lab. Some clinics have the first year of storage or first few months included, but others don’t.

Usually you pay monthly or annually.

As your decision for what to do with your embryo(s) is being made, time is passing which affects your wallet. Usually the fees aren’t high enough to be THE reason to inform your decision, but it’s not nothing, especially when it adds up over time.

Fertility & family implications

If you’re deciding whether to transfer another, the usual decision about having another child emerges. Household finances, age increases, energy levels might decrease (eventually), health status might change, parenting your current child/ren might affect your bandwidth and all the other pieces of making this decision. I get that, too. Even though an FET isn’t a guarantee, it’s might impact your decision.

Ethical implications

This is part of the decision, about donating, discarding, etc. It can be a bit of soul searching for some and a quick decision for others. You get to look at your embryos however aligns with your unique values and beliefs.

Emotional implications

Like the ethical implications, what this could look like has an emotional impact. It’s potentially letting go of a family size you thought you’d have, or perhaps the symbol for all that you did to create your living child, and of course if you donate, what that means for your future and your child’s future. I

This can be an emotional grieving process and it’s normal and common to delay this decision, too. ‘ve been there.

Partner’s wants and desires

It’s not uncommon to have a different idea than your partner, if you have one. It can take couples counselling or coaching, many nights staying up discussing, and coming together with a plan together that meets each of your needs. It happens.

Donor conception implication

If your embryo was created using donor eggs and/or donor sperm or even the donated embryos were gifted or sold to you, that has implications for how you potentially make this decision. The law is different across jurisdictions around what you can legally do, too. This gets complicated around the relationship to the donor(s) and back to the ethical dilemmas that can arise, because donating means more people involved because there’s the donor and you (plus or minus your partner). Do you have the choice? Do you want them to try and be as anonymous as possible? Open to medical questions? The list goes on.

How many frozen embryos you have

If you have 1 versus 10 embryos left, it might impact your decision about what to do. Some clinics have donation programs that only accept a minimum of a few embryos whereas finding intended parents on your own opens up to any amount.

Options for what to do with your leftover embryos

Now, it’s time to get to know your options to date.

1. Transfer one or more. This is probably an obvious one. You created embryos with the plan to use one or more. Transferring with hopes of a live birth is an option in an FET. This could be for your first living child or a sibling to your passed on or living child.
2. Destroy the embryo by instructing your clinic to do so, or ask to take the embryo home for you to destroy it yourself. This is often the right decision for people but only you know. Getting support from a mental health professional might be part of this process. You can ask to bring them home and have a ceremony to send them off. It’s an option that most people don’t think about.
3. Take your embryo home and make jewellery out of it. Ask your clinic to take it like #2 above, but create some memory sake so that it stays with you in some meaningful way.
4. Donate to Science. Usually this is to more donation to an embryologist in training for their skill development for the future.
5. Do a compassionate transfer. This requires money and time and other resources, but if it feels more aligned with your values to still transfer the embryo but you’re not wanting another live birth, transferring at a time in your cycle in an FET would not lead to a live birth is an option. This is common for religious reasons.
6. Donate to another family or families. This is a less common route and has major emotional implications for what your future looks like. You could be the genetic lineage to those embryos, genetically full siblings to your kiddo or kiddos and when you donate you often lose all of your rights to your embryos so the intended parents could choose to do what they’d like to do, even if it goes against the legal agreement that’s been laid out between both parties. The law is murky at best and I hear stories all the time. That said, this can be an amazing gift to a family who is struggling to bring home a baby. It can feel amazing to provide this ultruistic gift. It depends on the jurisdiction but you can also make money or at the very least, get reiumbursed for your embryo storage fees and most definitely the cost of the lawyers.

I have no judgement toward anyone and their choice for what they do with their embryo or embryos.

If you want support with your decision, please book a session to explore what that could look like. A certified coach helps guide and I have the personal experience so you know that I understand.