It Just Takes One Good Embryo

If you’ve spent any time in the infertility world, you’ve heard the phrase: “It just takes one good embryo.”

It’s repeated in clinics, whispered between patients, and offered as reassurance when numbers feel overwhelming. The intention is usually kind—to offer hope. One good embryo, nine-ish months later, a baby in your arms.

Especially when success rates are quoted as high as 70–80 percent for a transfer with a genetically normal embryo, the phrase can sound almost simple. And for some people, it is. They go through IVF, create one good embryo, and it works. That story exists—and it is amazing.

But it isn’t the only story.

There’s the forty-year-old who does back-to-back IVF cycles for an entire year just to make that one embryo—enduring physical exhaustion, financial strain, and emotional toll for a single chance. And then, if pregnancy happens, the quiet pressure of knowing how hard that embryo was to make, and that there are no others waiting.

There’s the person who spends years in IVF, believing persistence will eventually lead to that one good embryo. And then, after exhausting every option, she chooses to use a donor egg—not because it was the plan, but because it becomes the path that finally allows her to create one.

There are stories like mine, too—where it took more than eleven embryos to find my “one good embryo.” Eleven chances. Eleven losses of hope. Eleven reminders that the phrase doesn’t account for how much can come before the “one.”

Another reality often goes unspoken: many people aren’t trying to make one embryo. They’re trying to make several. Because second transfers often have higher success rates. Because if you want more than one child, you may need multiple embryos—sometimes multiple embryos per child.

And there is one more truth that deserves to be named.

For some people, despite years of treatment, multiple clinics, and countless cycles, there is no “one good embryo.” Not everyone who starts IVF ends with an embryo to transfer. It only takes one—but there is no guarantee you will ever get even one.

So yes, it’s technically true. You only need one good embryo.

But that phrase skips over the waiting, the grief, the math, the fear, and the resilience required to get there—or the reality that sometimes, it doesn’t happen at all. It simplifies a process that, for many, is anything but simple.

“It just takes one good embryo” may offer hope.
But it is never the whole story.

This post is shared for educational purposes and personal reflection. It is not intended as medical or mental health advice, nor is it meant to replace therapy or professional support.  To research your chances of success with IVF look to www.sart.org.