IVF success rates have become so good that there are now many couples, especially those starting young, who find themselves with remaining frozen embryos after they have completed their family. Options for dealing with unused frozen embryos include discarding, donating them for research or donating them to another couple. Each ootion involves complex issues in making this difficult decision.
A survey in the July 2010 issue of Fertility & Sterility examined the choices made by parients at one fertility center. Of 149 patients from Washington University in St. Louis, 59% donated them to scientific research, 38% discarded, and 3% donated to a known or anonymous person/couple for attempted pregnancy. There was no significant difference in the choice selected between patients who achieved a pregnancy with delivery compared with those who did not. In addition, the patient's age at retrieval and at the time of disposition as well as the total time in storage was not significantly different between patients electing to discard and those donating to research.
My experience at Reproductive Partners is that most couples avoid making this difficult decision and just keep their embryos frozen indefinitely. For highly successful couples the optiion of donating to another couple who has exhausted their options is a a way of giving something back when they have been so fortunate. But, as we can all understand, it can be difficult to have one's biologic offspring out there without having any knowledge or control of their future.
A few years ago there was an estimate of 400,000 frozen embryos in IVF centers throughout the United States, lending credability to the difficuty in making a decision to release them.