It was earlier this year that our country's first pregnancy from a frozen oocyte was announced by our center. The much awaited one after a series of trials and failures. The patient is a 29 year old, with a previous bad obstetric history and an abnormal karyotype which necessitated the use of donor oocytes for the present conception. The reason for use of frozen oocytes was the non availability of compatible fresh donors. The absolutely exclusive oocytes were in store for cases like these where there is an unexpected non availability of compatible donors in the fresh cycles and the couple are keen on continuing the treatment cycle.

The patient was also counseled about the use of frozen thawed oocytes and the expected success rate for the cycle-not a convincing 2%! The pregnancy resulted from thawing of 10 oocytes, of which unusually 8 survived the thawing process, 6 fertilized with ICSI and transfer of 5 reasonable quality embryos(3 and 2 cells, grade II-III). Why 5 and not the recommend 3 embryos? Well, considering our previous experience of inadequate embryos for transfer following thawing and negative result for pregnancy, we decided to transfer at least 5 of this crop which as I mentioned did not have the conventional cleavage or grade as expected (i.e 4 cells grade I-II).

Given the low pregnancy rates, we had to thaw more oocytes in order to enhance the chances of achieving enough good grade embryos for transfer-success having evaded us earlier. Until date, there is only 50% retrieval rate for frozen oocytes and hence to obtain at least 3-4 reasonable quality embryos, thawing of at least 6-10 oocytes are needed. She progressed uneventfully with early fetal screening tests being normal, until the 5th month when she was diagnosed with mild pregnancy induced hypertension and is currently on treatment with antihypertensives.

During her level-2 scan, where the fetal screening was normal, a shortened cervix of 1.5cm was imaged suggestive of cervical incompetence. She has since then been in admission with us since from 26 weeks for careful surveillance of mother and baby. She does moderate physical activities and BP is well controlled with medications. Until now there has been no sign of preterm labor and she is currently 33 weeks pregnant. We are hoping for the best and awaiting the D-day when we will get to hold the little bundle of joy- signaling another landmark achievement and serving as a ray of hope to many young women in need of oocyte freezing technology.