Happy New Year, ladies!
I just wanted to share my story in the hope of helping someone else to make a decision about how many embryos to transfer in a DE cycle.
My husband and I are both 34 and have been ttc#1 for 10 years. Initially, my only diagnosis was mild to moderate endo. I've had two laparoscopies to remove it. We did 7 IUIs and 5 IVFs with my own eggs, mostly in my 20s. All BFNs, but one -- the very first IVF was a chemical. My FSH was always super low and we retrieved 8-10 eggs on average in those 5 IVF cycles. We had 3-day transfers in all cycles and none of the remaining embryos made it to freeze. Even though some of my 3-day embryos looked textbook perfect, we knew it was an egg quality issue.
When we decided to move on to using donor eggs, my younger sister who has a young child of her own, offered to help me. She didn't produce many eggs, but they were of excellent quality. She donated twice for us:
DE IVF#1 -- 3 blasts transferred (one graded a 4AA, one a 3AB, and one a very early blast, with 5AA being the best) -- BFP, m/c
DE IVF#2 -- 2 blasts transferred (a 4AA and a 4AB) -- BFP, blighted ovum
DE FET #1 -- BFN
As you can see, we took a risk and transferred 3 blasts in the first DE cycle because of my long history of IF. Two of those embryos implanted and then to our shock, one split into identical twins. So we were pregnant with triplets. We heard their heartbeats and even though we were scared, we were excited as well. Then it all went to hell. We first lost the identical twins and I lost a significant amount of blood. The ultrasound showed a huge hematoma. The third baby (the one in its own sac) was still alive and well, with a strong heartbeat. However, I knew something wasn't right a week later when I started spotting heavily again. The u/s showed that the third baby's heartbeat stopped and I needed an emergency D&C because of a lot of bleeding.
In our next DE cycle, we refused to transfer more than 2 blasts because we were terrified of multiples again. That cycle resulted in a blighted ovum 
.
After two fresh and one FET cycles with my sister's eggs, we decided to move on to a proven anonymous donor. We were excited about our donor since she was twice proven, looked a lot like me and had similar personality, etc. Plus she was only 25 and had a child of her own. As our luck would have it, she had an awful cycle with us.
DE IVF#3 (anonymous donor, 25 years of age) -- 23 eggs retrieved, 20 fertilized, 18 were 8 cells on day 3, but only 3 became blasts on day 5 -- BFN
We transferred 2 blasts and one morula that cycle because they didn't look that good. However, our RE was still hoping that I would get pregnant since she was only 25.
Two more embryos made it to blasts by day 6 and we did a FET.
DE FET#2 -- BFN
In my most recent cycle, we went with a different donor, also twice proven and with a child of her own. She's 27. In the two previous successful cycles, each receipient transferred 2 blasts and ended up with 1 baby. So her eggs produced pregnancy in 50% of the cases.
DE IVF#4 (anonymous donor, 27 years old) -- 25 eggs retrieved, 18 were mature, 15 fertilized, 8 excellent quality blasts on day 5/6.
Once again, because of our long history, we just wanted to be pregnant already, so we made a mistake of transferring 3 blasts (2 were 5AAs and one a 4AA). We are educated people and considered all scenarios, but the one that happened to us. Our RE told us that given our IF history, there was less than 5% chance of getting pregnant with triplets and about 50% chance of twins.
Imagine our shock when we heard 4 strong heartbeats!!! All three blasts took and one split into identicals again. Our RE was in shock as well -- the chances of this happening to someone twice are like one in a billion. This was our clinic's first case of quads. Right away, we heard the selective reduction speech. We were terrified.
I am a petite woman with a small frame. While my uterus was adjusting to 4 growing babies, I started bleeding and spotting almost every day just after we found out we were pregnant. My clinic kept saying that there was a big strain on my uterus and some of the blood vessels were bursting and bleeding. At 7 weeks 5 days, I had a huge bleed -- heavier than my period and passed clots. I thought it was all over. My u/s at 8 weeks showed a moderate hematoma (4.5 cm). It also showed that my identical twins lost their heartbeats (they had the strongest heartbeats out of 4 babies just the week before). However, they were measuring 3-4 days ahead of schedule, so this means their hearts just stopped beating . The other two babies were fine.
I am 9 weeks 4 days today and at my last u/s at 9 weeks I still had two strong babies, but also two other sacs -- one with the identicals and the hematoma. I've been bleeding and spotting for 5 weeks now. Every day I am scared of losing it all again.
I am writing to warn those of you who are thinking about transferring more than 2 blasts at a time. I would never transfer 3 blasts if I could go back. After 10 years of IF, it's easy to get carried away and to just want to be pregnant, but you have to think about what will happen after you get pregnant. I hope that this pregnancy ends well for me and will finally give me my baby/ies. I am considered extremely high risk right now. All I've ever wanted was to experience a normal pregnancy.
Sorry for such a long post. I just wanted to give a full context.
Thanks for listening and good luck to all of you!
Kite