Day 3 or day 5 transfer is best for ladies in 40s?!

[Iwantpregnancy]

Ive only ever had 3 day fresh embryo transfers and starting to wonder why my doctor doesnt wait til 5 days at least then ill know if my 2 week wait is for nothing! My doctor said embryos do better in the uterus than in the lab, thats why he doesnt like to wait til day 5 incase they "arrest" do u think hes right to do this? Im 45 so guess he dont wanna take any chances. Has anyone had a fresh embryo 5 day transfer success story here at around my age?

[DianeArnold Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Hi Iwantpregnancy. When I first started out in fertility, we only did Day 3 transfers, sometimes even Day 2! We hadn't got the expertise to grow to blastocyst, but managed many pregnancies even then. I agree that embryos are best back inside you where they belong. However, speak with your embryologist who know them best. Hope all ends well with whatever you do decide. Diane

[Iwantpregnancy in reply to DianeArnold]

Thx luv! Yes hes an ivf professional he must know what hes doing xxx

[DianeArnold Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK in reply to Iwantpregnancy]

Hi Iwantpregnancy. Lucky you! All the best and I shall be thinking of you both. Diane

[Hidden]

Hi, I am 43 and been doing IVF since I was 39. Basically it all comes down to how many embryos you have. My clinic have always had the opinion that if you have more than 4 on day three because you can't transfer them all it is worth waiting and seeing which ones go on to be better embryos (because you can't tell on day 3 which the best are) but if you only have a couple you might as well get them back where they belong as their chances of continuing are optimised. Often as you get older embryo development is slower, so my day 5 transfer I have ended up with Morulas which are really day 4 embryos. I often wonder if they would have done better going back in on day 3.

Long story short at least with a day 3 transfer you have a chance - you dont know if they didnt make day 5 in the lab they wouldn't have done inside you. I would imagine thats their mindset. I did have a BFP from a day 5 transfer on one round but sadly I miscarried. I have had a large number of rounds now and had everything from a day 2 to a day 5 transfer - whatever looked like the best chance at the time.

Good luck x

[Iwantpregnancy in reply to Hidden]

Thanks love! Im sorry to hear aboit ur miscarriage that made me sad but glad u got through it. So i had 5 embryos they put 3 in my uterus and left 2 outside to see how they grow xx

[BBHH1 in reply to Iwantpregnancy]

That was good management!

[Ell493]

I'm all for day 5. I've read a lot about how most of the day 3s will never turn into day 5s. I experienced this myself. My donor and I did egg retrieval at the same time. On day 3 we had 29 embryos. On day 5 we only had 3 left, and none of them were mine, all the donor's. We did testing and one was abnormal. So now we're down to two. We're doing assisted hatching as well. The odds are supposedly better with the steps we've taken. We'll see!

[Aiday]

I was literally just wondering the same thing. I’m 41 and I wasn’t given any option. They just said a 3 day or 5 day wouldn’t make any difference. X

[BBHH1]

Absolutely day 3 for, your doc is right!