At first, all we could see was that we had lost most of the number we started with. Our clinic saw something different.
We began with thirty-three eggs retrieved across two aspirations. We ended with five euploid embryos ready for transfer planning. On paper, that looked like attrition on a scale we had not prepared for. Emotionally, each update felt like a small loss, even when the people guiding us sounded calm.
This is not another article about how to read a PGT-A report. We wrote that separately, in how we learned to read our PGT-A results, because genetics vocabulary deserved its own explanation. This article is about the journey before that report: egg retrieval, thawing, fertilization, Day 3 updates, blastocyst development, biopsy, and the slow realization that IVF numbers fall at every stage for most people, not only for us.
We are intended parents sharing our experience, not medical or legal advisors. This is not medical advice, not a prediction of your outcome, and not a claim that five euploid embryos from thirty-three eggs is universally good or bad. It is simply what happened when our numbers kept going down, and what we wish someone had explained about the attrition funnel before we started doing bad maths in our heads.
Why thirty-three eggs sounded like a lot
Before we understood embryology, a large retrieval number felt reassuring. Thirty-three sounded abundant. It sounded like margin for error. It sounded like proof that the donor cycle had gone well and that the hard part of egg supply was behind us.
We had already learned, while choosing a donor, that the number of retrieved eggs is not the same thing as the number of transferable embryos. Knowing that in theory and feeling it in real time were different experiences.
In our case the total came from two retrievals: fifteen mature oocytes the first time, and eighteen the second. That split mattered later, because not every egg moved straight into fertilization on one day. Some waited in storage. Some did not survive thawing. The headline number was thirty-three, but the usable funnel started smaller than that headline suggested.
A big retrieval is not the finish line. It is the opening number in a process that routinely removes eggs and embryos at every checkpoint.
The first retrieval: good news, then waiting for recovery
The first cycle moved quickly. An early check-up showed more follicles than expected, and retrieval was scheduled for the next day rather than after a longer stimulation window. Fifteen mature oocytes were collected. The agency told us that if the next retrieval produced six or more mature oocytes, embryo development could proceed.
That sounded straightforward. What we had not fully absorbed yet was that the donor’s body still needed time to recover before a second stimulation could safely begin.
Her ovaries remained inflamed after stimulation. Check-ups continued every nine days. When we asked whether that was normal, the answer was yes: ovaries are intentionally stimulated to retrieve multiple oocytes, and a strong response can mean fewer stimulation days but somewhat higher inflammation afterward. The clinic said her dosage would be reduced next time, with her health and well-being as the top priority.
That framing mattered. The donor was not a production line. She was a person going through a medical process on our behalf, and her recovery timeline shaped ours. Mild inflammation lingered through March. A planned restart slipped because of illness. The second stimulation did not begin until April.
Waiting for the donor to be ready was our first lesson that embryo creation follows biology and recovery, not our preferred calendar.
The second retrieval: more eggs, thawing, and the first real drop
The second aspiration retrieved eighteen oocytes. Combined with the first retrieval, that brought us to thirty-three total. On its own, eighteen felt like strong news.
Then came thawing. The fifteen oocytes from the first retrieval needed to be warmed before injection. Ten did not survive thawing.
That update landed hard. Ten sounded dramatic, even though the remaining count was still above the minimum our team typically wanted for ICSI. We injected twelve oocytes for one semen sample and eleven for the other. The agency also planned a third retrieval as a precaution, to cryopreserve more oocytes for the future. That was preventive planning, not a sign they expected the current cycle to fail.
This was the first moment we did maths against the headline thirty-three and felt our stomach drop. We were no longer thinking about thirty-three eggs. We were thinking about twenty-three usable oocytes, then about twelve and eleven assigned for injection.
Thaw survival is its own stage. Not every stored egg becomes an injected egg, and a large thaw loss can feel catastrophic even when the lab still considers the cycle viable.
Day 1: fertilization numbers
Fertilization day brought the first numbers that felt unequivocally hopeful.
For one of us, eight of twelve injected oocytes fertilized correctly. For the other, nine of eleven did. Those are strong fertilization rates in our situation, and our agency said so plainly.
For a brief window, the attrition funnel felt like it had stopped narrowing. We were no longer mourning eggs that never made it to injection. We had embryos, or at least the Day 1 equivalent: confirmed fertilization events we could count.
What we did not yet appreciate was how dependent we would become on the next message. Day 1 gave hope. It also trained us to wait for the next report before we allowed ourselves to breathe.
Day 3: still developing, but the report became more technical
Day 3 arrived with a different tone. The headline was reassuring: eight embryos still developing on one side, nine on the other. None had stopped. That was the part we clung to.
The detail lines were harder to read. Fragmentation percentages. Compaction. Asymmetric cells. Vacuoles described as small fluid-filled bubbles inside cells, intermediate rather than clearly good or bad.
We did not need to become embryologists to feel unsettled. Unfamiliar words on a progress report sound like hidden bad news when you do not yet know which details actually predict failure. Our agency emphasized what mattered most at that stage: everything was still developing. Not every concerning word meant the embryo was finished.
Day 3 reports can look alarming because they are detailed, not because every detail is a verdict. Your clinic should interpret your own Day 3 language; ours helped us focus on continuation rather than on every cell-count adjective.
Day 5 and Day 6: blastocysts and biopsy
By blastocyst stage, the funnel narrowed again in a way we could feel in our bodies.
Five embryos from one side reached blastocyst stage and were biopsied. Six from the other side did the same. Eleven biopsied blastocysts felt like meaningful progress, and it was. It was also a long way from thirty-three eggs, and our brains kept doing that subtraction without being asked.
No embryos reached Day 6 in our cycle. Samples went to the genetics lab a few days later, with PGT results expected in roughly fifteen business days. The agency hoped for at least three euploid embryos from each side. We tried to hold onto that hope while remembering that hope is not a laboratory outcome.
Blastocyst stage is a real achievement and a real filter. Many fertilized embryos do not get there. Reaching eleven biopsied blastocysts was not failure, even though it felt like a steep drop from the opening number.
PGT-A: the final drop to euploid embryos
When PGT results returned, the funnel narrowed one last time.
We had five euploid embryos in total: three assigned to one of us, two to the other. After weeks of updates, that was the number that would shape transfer planning.
We are not repeating our private report here. If you are trying to understand euploid, mosaic, embryo grades, and what PGT-A does and does not test, our PGT-A reading guide is the better place to start. This article stops at the count: five euploid embryos from a journey that began with thirty-three retrieved eggs.
PGT-A screens for chromosomal status; it does not guarantee pregnancy or live birth. Rates vary by age, lab, clinic, and case. We share our numbers as context, not as a benchmark you should expect to match.
Our attrition funnel in one table
Looking back, the emotional whiplash makes more sense when the stages sit side by side. This table uses neutral labels and our real counts. How it felt is part of the story, not a medical judgment.
| Stage | What happened in our case | How it felt |
|---|---|---|
| Eggs retrieved | 15 first retrieval + 18 second retrieval = 33 | Reassuringly high |
| Eggs used for ICSI | 12 for one sample, 11 for the other | First reality check |
| Day 1 fertilized | 8 and 9 | Hopeful |
| Day 3 developing | 8 and 9 | Still hopeful, but technical terms appeared |
| Blastocysts biopsied | 5 and 6 | Big drop, but still progress |
| Euploid embryos | 3 and 2 | Grateful, but still anxious |
Why five out of thirty-three felt scary but was not necessarily bad news
We did the maths before we understood the biology. Five euploid embryos from thirty-three eggs is about fifteen percent if you divide the final number by the opening headline. Emotionally, that can sound like losing eighty-five percent of what we started with.
That framing is the wrong scoreboard. The goal of IVF is not to keep every egg. The goal is to reach enough viable embryos to create real transfer chances. Our clinic treated five euploid embryos as meaningful, workable news in our situation. That did not erase our anxiety. It reframed what we were measuring.
We did not need thirty-three children. We needed enough real chances. Five euploid embryos can represent five chances, not one fifteen-percent consolation prize. Whether that count is strong, average, or disappointing depends on context we cannot generalize from our case alone.
Before PGT, we had heard transfer success discussed in broad terms around sixty percent in some conversations. After PGT, our doctor framed our situation closer to around eighty percent per transfer in our case. We share that only as our clinic’s estimate for us, not as a universal rate. Eighty percent is hopeful. Although it is not one hundred percent.
Attrition is expected at every stage. Feeling grief at each drop is human. Treating each drop as proof of disaster is usually a category error.
The fear of “only two embryos”
Five euploid embryos sounded workable in the abstract. Two of them belonged to one of us, and that number sat differently.
Our contract allowed three transfer attempts per side. Online forums are full of people describing five, six, or eight transfers before success. It is easy to absorb those stories and feel under-equipped with only two embryos, even when the clinic is not sounding alarmed.
We held two truths at once. Five total was a result our team treated as hopeful. Two on one side still felt thin when we thought about failed transfers, cancelled cycles, or the simple fact that no euploid embryo guarantees implantation.
“We only need one” helped emotionally. We tried not to turn it into a guarantee. One embryo can be enough. It is also okay to feel nervous when your side of the ledger is smaller than you hoped.
Gratitude for a good overall outcome and fear about a smaller personal count can coexist. Neither feeling means you are doing the process wrong.
What we wish we had understood earlier
If we could send a note to ourselves at the first retrieval, it would say this:
- The headline egg count is not the number that matters at transfer planning.
- Thaw survival, fertilization, Day 3, blastocyst development, and PGT-A are separate filters. Loss at one stage does not automatically predict loss at the next.
- Detailed Day 3 language is often written for embryologists, not for anxious intended parents reading on a phone at midnight.
- Clinics measure against transfer goals, not against the emotional maths of “how much did we lose from thirty-three.”
- Donor recovery timelines are part of the process. Rushing the biology helps no one, especially not the donor.
- Ask what each update actually means before assuming the worst interpretation.
We still felt stress at every message. Understanding the funnel did not remove uncertainty. It gave us better questions and slightly less panic at words we did not yet recognize.
What we carry forward
Embryo creation was the stage where surrogacy stopped feeling like paperwork and started feeling like a series of narrowing numbers we could not control. That was exhausting. It was also normal enough that our clinic had language ready for each drop before we did.
Thirty-three to five is our story, not a template. Your funnel may look different. The emotional pattern may still rhyme: a large opening number, a sequence of updates, and the temptation to treat attrition as failure rather than as filtering.
If you are earlier in the journey, our article on how we chose an egg donor covers the stage before retrieval. Our piece on reading PGT-A results picks up where this one ends. And how we chose our two gestational carriers describes what came next once we had embryos to think about transferring.
Disclaimer
MySurrogacy does not provide medical, legal, tax, immigration, or financial advice. This article reflects intended-parent experience and is meant for general planning support only. IVF and PGT outcomes vary widely; qualified professionals who know your case should interpret your laboratory updates and advise on next steps.