IVF#3 - Snow Baby

I can't believe I have a whole week to go till beta, torture I tell ya!!!! I've been frustrated because I've been feeling great, but within the last hour I've been feeling mildly crampy, wahoo!

I just called the lab regarding my remaining embryos and I had one PERFECT day 6 embryo frozen!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I now have a backup or a future sibling!!!

For those that like the details...

This embryo came from the first batch, nothing made it from the second batch. Here's the stats on this embryo:
Day 2: 3-cell grade 4-
Day 3: 6-cell grade 4-
Day 5: early blast
Day 6: 4AA blast

The 4 is the development stage of the blast, which in this case is the stage right before it hatches out of its shell. The first A is the grade of the inner cells that will become the fetus. The second A is the grade of the outer cells that will become the placenta.

OMG, I am so excited I don't quite know what to do with myself!!!! I finally got a blast!!!!!!! This gives me even more hope for the embryos that are inside me since they were the best of the bunch!

They also used the new vitrification process instead of cryopreservation which has a near 100% thaw success rate.

I did have one other blast but they discarded it because it was 4BC. =(

AHHHHHHHHHH, someone just knock me out already, I'm too happy!!!

IVF#3 - Photos

The triplets and I are doing well, but we're getting pretty bored stuck here on bedrest. We though we would share a few more photos from our trip here.

Feeding the squirrels at The Broadmoor, Colorado Springs:

Pike's Peak, Colorado Springs:

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs:

Kerry made me a snow belly:

IVF#3 - Day 3 Transfer

Sorry for the late update, we had to scramble to find some flights back home for this Fri.

I had my day 3 transfer today and all went well! I'm currently carrying TRIPLETS!!!!

Here's the details if anyone is interested...

I had b/w an hour prior to the transfer. They want your E2 to be > 1000, mine was 1670, so all good there.

I was admitted to the transfer room where I put on a gown and was given a Valium (oh la la!). The sonogragher came in and did an u/s on my belly to make sure my bladder was full. It was very full so they gave me a cup and told me how much I could let out. That was a relief. I went back to my room and layed down, felt a little dizzy and fell sound asleep. The sonogragher came in and checked my bladder again and said all was ready to go.

Dr. Schoolcraft came in to do the transfer. We were expecting the embryologist first to give us our embryo report. So at this point we still had no clue what we even had left. He said we had 3 great embryos he'd like to transfer but he needed to know that we were ok with the risk of triplets or twins. He also gave us the option of transferring just 2 or changing our transfer to a day 5 to see which embryos were the best, but that carried a risk of nothing making it. As much as I wanted a day 5 transfer, I just couldn't take that risk that nothing would be left and then I would have no chance. Our heads were spinning and he pretty much wanted an answer on the spot. Since we transferred 4 last time and ended up with nothing, we decided to just go for it and transfer the 3. Multiples may be scary, but not as scary as going home with nothing. He said there was a less than 10% chance of triplets and 20% chance of twins. Just the fact that we have a risk of multiples made us excited because that must mean we have a good chance of having one.

The embryologist came in wheeling in this huge incubator. There was a monitor on top showing our 3 embabies. Kerry took a picture of them but with the screen being out of focus and then not being able to use a flash, the photo isn't very clear, but at least we have a photo of them.

The embryologist loaded up the embryos, the sonogragher had my uterus on the screen and Schoolcraft threaded the catheter through my cervix. Within a min, it was done. I had to lay there for an hour and now I'm back at the hotel on 48 hrs of bedrest. Kerry has been taking great care of me, he's such an awesome husband!

Here are the embryo details:

CCRM grades their embryos on a scale of 1- to 4 with 4 being perfect. 4- would be less than 10% fragmentation.
Batch 1 (3 day old embryos, should be 4-8 cells):
Embryo 01: 9 Cells, Grade 4-, Transferred
Embryo 02: 8 Cells, Grade 4-, Transferred
Embryo 03: 6 Cells, Grade 4-, Transferred
Embryo 04: 6 Cells, Grade 4-
Embryo 05: 6 Cells, Grade 4-
Embryo 06: 4 Cells, Grade 4-
Embryo 07: 4 Cells, Grade 3 uneven
Embryo 08: 3 Cells, Grade 3

Batch 2 (2 day old late bloomers, should be 2-4 cells):
Embryo 09: 6 Cells, Grade 4 uneven
Embryo 10: 4 Cells, Grade 4-
Embryo 11: 2 Cells, Grade 4-
Embryo 12: 2 Cells, Grade 4-

OMG, I can't believe I had 12 still going in culture. I'm praying for a couple of snow babies as a backup or for a future sibling. Schoolcraft said not to hold my breath, but that it's not impossible. We will get a call Sun/Mon letting us know if any made it to freeze.

Gosh, I just really feel like this is going to work this time!!!

Here's my trips (they don't appear perfect to me, but CCRM said they were, so I'll trust them)

IVF#3 - Day 2 Embryo Report

I'm still bloated but getting better each day. I've eaten half of the salt provided in our room. This is pretty much how you can picture me in my room every day.


Ok, now onto the news you really want, day 2 embryo report!!!

As a recap, we had 13 mature on day 0 and 3 more that matured on day 1. I got better news, when they went to icsi the 3 late bloomers at noon, they found that 3 more had matured for a total of 6!!! 4 of the 6 fertilized normally!!! This also means that Kerry's boys survived in culture overnight! So that bumps our total mature up to 19 out of 23 and our fertilized from 7 to 11!!! Thank you God and the CCRM lab!!!

Then the embryologist asked if I'd like to hear the progress on my original 7 that fertilized. I lucked out as they don't normally give day 2 results. She said that they expect embryos to be between 2 and 4 cells today and that all 7 are progressing normally. I about fell over. Here are the details:

1 @ 4-cells, 2 @ 3-cells, 4 @ 2-cells

So definitely not perfect as they much prefer them to be at 4 cells by now, but there is still time to catch up and they could divide into 4 at any moment. I've never had anything over 2-cells on day 2, so I'm thrilled. We have already declared the 4-cell as our take home souvenir.

As far as quality, they don't grade them at this point, but she did say that all have less than 10% fragmentation, no vacuoles and no multinucleation. Yeah!!!

I have b/w tomorrow at noon to make sure my e2 is at the right level for transfer. My day 3 transfer is scheduled at 1p. I won't hear another update until then unless they find that my embryos are doing really well and decide to push me to day 5. I'm still holding out hope for a day 5 transfer.

IVF#3 - Fertilization Report

Some quick terminology for the family:
OHSS - ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome
ICSI - Intra cytoplasmic sperm injection
SA - semen analysis
U/S - ultrasound
B/W - blood work
Multinucleated - each embryo cell should have 2 nuclei, one from each parent, multinucleated means there is more than one pair which is abnormal.

Last night was a little nerve racking as I bloated up to the appearance of 6 months pg and was having lots of sharp pains. I literally had to waddle. I showed Kerry my belly and he said "Good God! Are you going to be ok?". I listened to the nurses and ate tons of salt and protein and drank tons of electrolyte enhanced water. A normal blood pressure is 120/80, but I have a very low bp of 100/60, that's just what's normal for me. With all of this salt intake, I told Kerry maybe I'll get up to a normal bp.

I woke up feeling much better and about 80% of the bloating went down, the salt worked!!! I told the nurse that I thought salt caused you to retain water, but she said it works in the opposite manner with it comes to OHSS. OHSS causes all the fluid in your organs to seep out into your abdominal cavity causing the organs to be dehydrated, I guess the salt causes your organs to retain their fluid.

I had my u/s this morning to check for fluid. They did find some fluid around my uterus, but not enough to compromise my cycle. Thankfully all other organs like the lungs and liver were free of fluid build up. Yeah!!! I have to keep up the salt/water intake to keep OHSS at bay.

The embryologist called with my report. Here's the results including my previous cycles:

IVF#1:
Retrieved: 10
Mature: 4
Fertilized: 2

IVF#2:
Retrieved: 19
Mature: 12
Fertilized: 4 + 4 late (7 are multinucleated, so only 1 is normal)

IVF#3:
Retrieved: 23
Mature: 13 + 3 more today (will rescue-isci today at noon)
Fertilized: 7 (waiting to see if the 3 above will fertilize)

So as of right now we've dropped from 23 to 7, so it's a little sad, but it's still the best we've ever had, so it's also exciting. I can't tell you how nice it was to be able to get off that fert call and not be in tears!

Kerry's SA results:
Volume: 1.8ml
Count: 23mil/ml, 41.4 mil total
Motility: 5%
Motility Rate: 3 (1 being twitching to 3+ being fast)
Total Motile: 2.07 mil
OMG!!!! We have NEVER had progressive motility out of the 12 SAs he's had done!!! They said they were moving really fast, this is a total answered prayer!

Now we sit and do some more waiting. Tomorrow we find out if the 3 that matured late fertilize. We won't get a division report until day 3, but I'm hoping I can get some info out of them when they call in the morning. Division is where we have lost practically all of our embies, so say an extra prayer for us for our day 3 report.