When most couples walk through the doors of in vitro fertilization (IVF), 99.9 percent of their attention is focused on using embryos—most frequently frozen embryos—to produce a child. But the other 0.1 percent is spent on issues such as age, gender, ethnicity, and physical characteristics. The fact is that not every embryo creates a healthy baby when implanted into the uterus. Only some embryos will develop into children with birth defects, mental illness, or no intelligence. The others will grow up to be obese adults who struggle with diabetes or heart disease. In other words, not all embryos are created equal. Some embryos are better than others at developing into healthy babies. It's normal to feel afraid and sad about losing your embryos. It's normal to worry about what will happen to them after you die or go into storage. But keeping them frozen isn't going to help you get pregnant any faster-the only way to get pregnant quickly is to use your preserved eggs or sperm immediately. If you don't want any more embryos right now, then it's okay to let some of them die so you can stay safe while you think about how you want to move forward. Almost all embryos created by in vitro fertilization carry an increased risk of certain diseases because they have three copies of each chromosome instead of two.