Making baby number two through frozen embryo transfer

After a long struggle with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and male factor infertility, Brianne and Will Luckman finally had their first child with help from our Las Vegas fertility center. Their successful IVF cycle resulted in the birth of their son, Owen, in 2016. But the couple always dreamed of having a large family, so when it was time to try for baby number two, they returned to FCLV in May 2017 for a frozen embryo transfer with Bruce Shapiro MD.

Often, people who use IVF to grow their families are able to create multiple embryos that can be frozen indefinitely, providing additional opportunities to have children in the future without having to repeat the entire IVF process. There was just one embryo left from the cycle that resulted in Owen’s birth, but Brianne was confident that this one embryo would one day become Owen’s baby brother or sister.

“I wasn’t worried about it at all, since Dr. Shapiro was very confident that this frozen embryo transfer would work,” she says.

Having a baby through frozen embryo transfer

To start the process, Brianne didn’t even need to return to our Las Vegas fertility center right away. At the time, Will was in military training in Arizona while Brianne was living in Minnesota. There, Brianne’s OBGYN was able to monitor her cycle while she took hormone medications to prepare her uterus for the transfer.

“I was able to do the medications remotely, and I wasn’t as stressed this time because I knew everything that was coming,” she says. “We only needed to travel to Las Vegas for the transfer. I flew down for Will’s graduation on May 8, we visited my grandparents who live in Arizona and we drove from there to Las Vegas. We made a vacation out of it and stayed at a nice resort.”

After the frozen embryo transfer, Brianne rested in the hotel room for two days while Will and Owen played in the resort’s pool.

“Everything fell into place a lot quicker this time because of the way they do a frozen embryo transfer cycle,” she says. “You don’t have to plan and wait for the right month to come. When you’re ready to get pregnant again, you just call Dr. Shapiro and it’s, ‘Here we go!’”

While driving back home to Minnesota, the couple got the joyous call from Dr. Shapiro that their pregnancy test was positive.

After an uneventful pregnancy, baby Ben was born through a scheduled C-section on January 24, 2018, and his big brother Owen turned two years old just six days later. Juggling motherhood with a toddler and infant was a challenge at first, especially since Brianne underwent gallbladder surgery shortly after Ben was born.

“The biggest struggle was trying to make sure that I was making enough time for Owen while providing for all the needs of a newborn at the same time,” Brianne recalls. “I would make sure I was doing bath night, just me and Owen, or we would go somewhere with just the two of us and play for a little bit while their daddy stayed with the baby. Having that one-on-one time with me was important for him, because I was always his constant before Ben was born. Now that Ben is four months old, things are way easier, and we are finally getting into a groove.”

While Brianne would love to have more children, she’s content with the family she and Will have now, and is happy that she was able to have her two beautiful boys from a single IVF cycle.

Growing families through IVF

Being able to have two or more children from a single egg retrieval makes growing a family through IVF much more cost-effective. The key is working with a fertility specialist who can maximize your results the first time, and who uses the most advanced embryo freezing technology for high success rates with frozen embryo transfer. FCLV’s IVF cycle cost includes unlimited embryo transfers until the first pregnancy is achieved, then when it’s time for the family to grow a bit larger, patients can use their frozen embryos to try again for the much lower cost of a transfer cycle.

To learn more about growing your family through IVF and frozen embryo transfer, contact our Las Vegas fertility center.