Day 6 Embryo Report

After a nail-biting couple of days, the results are finally in...

Not as good as we would have liked, but certainly not as bad. Overall, we wish we got a few more, but we are very happy with the results.

So without further ado...

We have 2 frozen, high quality blastocyst embryos!

1 Frozen on day 5: Quality 4-B-A
1 Frozen on day 6: Quality 4-A-A

The "4" in our grading system means "fully developed blastocyst" exactly what you want at this point. A "3" is a still developing blastocyst. "5" would mean beginning to hatch and a "6" would mean fully hatched - you don't want that in the dish.

The A-A or A-B means the volume and quality of the cell masses which form the baby, and the placenta, and the quality of the physical structure of the embryo. A-A is the best. A-B is slightly lower in quality, but still great. And in the words of our embryologist, he said "One is perfect. And the second one is the same quality of your best embryo from last time (Which was Cooper!). They still have to survive the freeze and thaw, but I think you have a very high chance of achieving pregnancy with these embryos".

As for the other embryo's, all of them arrested in the dish between day 3 and 5 at some point. There is a 3rd one they're watching, which is currently a 3-C-C, and he doesn't thing it's going to develop any further. And the two from the day-2 fertilization are both still in the dish, but theire development is behind, and he expects them to arrest by tomorrow, which would be thier day 6.

So there we have it. We have two little embryo's that our frozen and waiting for us. Now we just have to talk to the doctor to find out exactly when the soonest we can prepare for our FET.

And like I say everytime, it's such a numbers game, and hopefully luck will be on our side once again. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Day 3 Embryo Report

PHOTO OF A PERFECT DAY 3, 8 CELL EMBRYO

After a nailbiting day of wondering what happened to our embryos overnight, John Stevens, our amazing embryologist, called with our Day 3 Embryo Report:

DAY 3 EMBRYO REPORT

Embryo #1 - 10 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #2 - 9 cell, grade 4
Embryo #3 - 8 cell, grade 4
Embryo #4 - 8 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #5 - 8 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #6 - 7 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #7 - 7 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #8 - 6 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #9 - 4 cell, grade 4

** The grade refers to degree of fragmentation on a scale from 1-4. 4 is best.
** 8 cells on day 3 is the best. But anything from 6 to 10 cells is considered good.

So that means, right now we one excellent looking embryo, one great looking embryo and 6 embryos that look good! One probably won't survive the night.

ADDITIONAL EMBRYOS fertilized on day 2) - DAY 2 REPORT:
Embryo #10 - 2 cell, grade 4-
Embryo #11 - 3 cell, grade 2+

** 2 cell on day 2 is best.
So one of these looks good so far, the other one is probably not going to make the night.


This is great news so far! And since we have many embryos that are looking good right now, they have made the decision to push on to day five or six before they freeze. So however many good embryos we have left on Sunday and Monday they will freeze.

This is the part of the process that has always been our biggest hurdle. We've only ever made Blast once. So to push onto day 5 or 6, we risk losing them all. But right now they are in the best lab and doing good -- so we are going to push onward and hope that we have some good looking blasts to freeze on Sunday!

The worst part is that we won't hear from anyone again until Monday. So we won't get another report until Day 5. YIKES! I hate not hearing anything for the next two days, but I'm holding out positive vibes and will be dreaming of perfect little blastocysts.

Come on CCRM lab -- work your magic!

PICTURE OF A PERFECT DAY 5 BLASTOCYST

2 More Embryos!

Out of the rest of my immature eggs that they cultured in the dish, 2 of them matured overnight and both of them fertilized with ICSI.

So now we are up to 11 embryos!

We should get a report tomorrow telling us the current state of the orginal 9 embyros. Scared to know, but trying to stay positive! Come on little guys, we're pulling for you!

Fertilization Report - 9 embryos

The embryologlist called with our fertilization report today, and day 1 results are as follows:

Out of my 26 eggs:
13 of them were viable. And were fertilized through ICSI.
Out of the 13 eggs they fertilized, 9 embryos fertilized and are growing in the dish.
2 of the eggs fertilized abnormally, and 2 just didn't fertilize.

Out of the half of my eggs were not usable:
10 of them were immature - in the 'germinal vesicle" stage.
2 were 'atretic' - just not living
1 was an empty shell called a 'zona pallucida' - with no real egg inside.s
The lab is going to take the 10 eggs that were immature and try to mature them in a dish to see if they will mature so they can fertilize them. Right now, one more egg looks like it will mature for sure and we will find out tomorrow how many matured overnight and they were able to fertilize.

So right now we have 9 embryos growing in the dish. And possibly a few more fertilized by tomorrow.

But since we are sadly forced into a freeze-all cycle due to my high E2, we will be flying home tomorrow without a fresh transfer. So instead, we'll get an update on day 3 and day 5, and hopefully have a few great embryos to freeze. We're very worried about how they will do in the dish over the next couple days -- as always, we expect to lose quite of few of them. And we're very worried about them surviving the freeze and the thaw when we come back to do our frozen transfer. But for now we will just rejoice in our 9 em-babies!!!

We have 9 little lives living at the present moment and one of those could be our future baby!

We hate to leave you little guys -- but we will see you again soon!

Egg Retrevial is over!

And the results are in -- 26 eggs!!!

We'll find out tomorrow how many of those eggs are useable and how many fertilized. We know it's a numbers game and expect to see a significant drop, but we just hope our future baby is in the mix.

They gave me medication to counteract the OHSS and although my stomach is very sore and I'm extremely tired, I'm hoping to feel much better tomorrow!

I'm just relaxing in bed tonight, eating ice-cream, and watching movies.

And the best part? No more needles!