IVF#4 - Day 6 Embryo Report

Just got my call from embryology. I had my expectations set correctly today so that I didn't have to fall off the cliff again. I prepared to hear to worst, that none made it today. This way I would only receive great news if any did make it.

Today I received great news. The compacting and morula from yesterday made it to blast today, were biopsied and frozen. Both are graded 4BB. A huge sigh of relief!

I had a short list of questions, but unfortunately the embyrologist that called made it very obvious that she wanted to tell me 2 made it and then get off the phone. She wasn't even going to tell me the grades. I managed to get very little detail from her about my remaining 8, that 2 more made it to early blast today but they have been discarded, and the rest stopped developing. I was horrified hearing that they were discarded, even if they weren't ready to be biopsied, they could have been frozen without testing. I wish I had more details. I asked to speak to the head embryologist but he's not in today and will give me a call tomorrow. I will be getting the full details then.

We have been given the option to test our vitrified 4AA blast from our previous cycle along with this current batch. Our reservation is that it would be put through 2 freeze/thaw cycles in order to test it. Because they are now using vitrification which has 99.9% freeze/thaw success rates, they are comfortable testing it. I will be asking the head embryologist tomorrow for more details on the level of stress this will cause.

There are a few reasons we want our embryos tested. Please respect that these are our personal reasons. We have tried naturally for 3.5 yrs and have transferred 8 embryos over 3 IVFs. We have not conceived once. We need answers as to whether we can produce genetically viable embryos. If we don't, it's time to give up on our dream of a biological child.

When the genetic viability of an embryo is unknown and with the high cost of IVF, we tend to transfer 2-4 in hopes that we become pg period, but that also puts us at risk of multiples. With knowing the status of my embryos, that gives me the option to transfer 1 with a high rate of success.

We really want to maximize our shot at a singleton. Twins would be risky for me as I'm very short, short waisted and have had part of my cervix removed. I fear that I would struggle to keep them in long enough and either lose them or risk them having problems from premature birth. Yes, I know, plenty of women my height carry twins and they turn out fine. But what you don't ever see is the number of women that lose them and end up devastated for years. If I'm blessed with twins, I will be happy and do everything I can to ensure their viability, but I don't want to intentionally conceive twins.

Another reason is that we would like to avoid the situation of paying storage fees, having false hope that we have a sibling waiting for us, paying $5000 to transfer only to end up with nothing because the embryo was not viable.

We are leaning heavily towards testing our previous embryo but will make our final decision tomorrow after talking to the head embryologist.

So here's our final results:

From this cycle: Day 5 4AA, Day 6 4BB, Day 6 4BB
From last cycle: Day 6 4AA

The embryos have been grown to blast, a biopsy has been taken of their placenta cells and they have been vitrified. The biopsies will be sent off to a genetics lab tomorrow to test all 23 pairs of chromosomes. The results will take 6-8 looonnnnnggg weeks. Our results will consist of normal, abnormal or no result. 30-50% on average come back normal. A no result means they were unable to determine either way. An FET will follow.

While Kerry and I would be thrilled to have all 4 come back normal, we are going to set our hope for all but our expectations for 2.