Our Last Embryo

A short essay about the experience of a failed frozen embryo transfer (FET)

*I wrote this essay after a failed frozen embryo transfer (FET) that we experienced a while ago. (It was written during the experience, but I wanted to wait to post it until time had passed, so it didnt feel like as much of a current pain.)

This was the last embryo we had- an embryo that shared the same little space in the cryogenic tank as my living daughter and son. I hung so many hopes and dreams onto this little one. My husband and I waited several years longer to transfer him than we originally planned, mainly because of overwhelm that I experienced when it came to parenting my son.

By the time I was ready, I had developed such a strong narrative of what it would be like to have three children- of what it could be like to mother a daughter and two sons. I had their lives layed out before me, dreams of their sibling dynamics danced across my eyelids as I slept each night leading up to the transfer. By the time the transfer happened, I had already written a story in my mind about how redemptive of an experience it would be to be able to transfer just one embryo and have it work (I had only ever had success in transferring multiple embryos in the past). And then, just like so many times before, the transfer failed. Unlike so many times before, I was left sitting in the grief with no more steps to take- no clinic to call to schedule the next transfer. No medication to begin. Just a dream to release, and the task of leaving the “making baby” years behind me. This short essay was written in an attempt to capture the tangle of emotions I experienced when it all happened. I know that so many experience the pain of failed embryo transfers in silence- the disenfranchised grief can feel unbelievably lonely. I hope it helps someone who needs it feel seen. You are not alone.

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I hate that for just the chance to have another baby, I had to throw myself back into the nightmare of it all. The shots, the hormone roller coaster. The incredible loneliness. The bitterness it brings up. The huge amount of money spent on-what? A heavy period and lots of tears.

Should I not have lifted my daughter out of her crib that day? Gone for that walk? Did I do one of the progesterone shots too late? Or was this, like the vast majority of my embryos, just another one that for some reason, was never meant to be?

The aftermath of a failed transfer is the heaviest time. Every day feels like a slow trudge through another grey Sunday. Everyone around you is pregnant. Very few know the enormity of everything you just lost, or how the pain can feel just as crushing as a “real” miscarriage.

With every other failed transfer, it was different because there was always a next “to do.” The next call with the clinic. The next embryo in line for a transfer. In infertility land, sometimes the promise of your next step keeps you going. It keeps you hooked.

But this was our last embryo. And there is no next step. Nothing to do but breathe in gratitude as I hug my two IVF miracles, and breathe out the dream of getting to do it all one more time. A dream that was simply too greedy, it seems.

Goodbye my sweet little one. You were the most beautiful “what if” over the past few years. I’ll never regret trying for you. I already miss you so much.

-Dr. Colleen Reichmann