Ups and Downs

Egg retrieval went really well. Thursday Lucy, the Embryologist, called to let me know all seven eggs retrieved fertilized.


Not my egg, but the picture above is what my egg looked like after one night fertilized.

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Friday Lucy called and told me that of the seven eggs fertilized, five were doing very well. On a scale of 1 - 5, two of the eggs were a grade 1 and three were a grade 2. She said she was planning on a 5-day transfer instead of the expected 3-day transfer due to the great quality of my eggs. Yay!

Above is an example of what a 4-cell embryo looks like.

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Saturday Lucy called and didn't have quite the optimistic news as yesterday. Only three embryos divided to the 8-cell stage. Two of the embryos divided into five cells. Five is no good. Five isn't even a proper stage name. There is no stage five! The 5-celled ones must have had my math genes.


Above is an example of an 8-cell embryo. Three of my embryos currently look like that picture.

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I asked Lucy if we should transfer today (Saturday) or if we can move the transfer up a day to Sunday, which is tomorrow. Lucy said tomorrow is a bad idea because of the extreme growth in the next 24 hours. The cells divide so fast and the embryo is rather unstable.

She didn't recommend transfer for today because she wants to wait and make sure the two embryos to be transfered are the most viable choices. She won't know which embryos those are until tomorrow or Monday. She's trying to weed out my math genes.

My mom and I were shopping when Lucy called. After I hung up, all I wanted to do was get back in the car and go back to bed. I didn't even call Alan and tell him.

Hopefully, while Lucy is making sure the embryos that will be transfered are proper mathematicians, she can weed out my propensity for worrying. And while she's pcking and choosing, I think I'll suggest she picks out a couple of embryos that have Alan's hair gene. Great, now I'm picturing dividing eggs with curly hair.

Here's a picture of what we are hoping to transfer two of on Monday. Pretty, aren't they?


I did finally tell Alan. He's optimistic and thinks everything will be okay. He's so good for my nerves.