Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Moving forward

Last cycle I got my fertilization report before 9am, so I was expecting something similar today. 9am came and went. 10am came and went. 11am came and went. I was freaking out thinking that none of the eggs fertilized and that's why they were late calling. But finally I got the call, and it was good news! Out of the 5 eggs retrieved, 4 were mature and all 4 of those fertilized with ICSI. Phew!

Embryo transfer will be on Thursday. My aunt will be driving me (woo-hoo!), and my acupuncturist will meet me there to do the needles imediately before and after transfer. My aunt is a craniosacral therapy practitioner, so if I'm really super lucky maybe I can get her to do some work on me as well.

So the big question is, how many to transfer? With four, I'm very very tempted to ask them to put them all in (if they're all still alive on Thursday). I already warned the nurse that I want to discuss this with the doctor. Obviously, the thought of triplets or quads is not a prospect that thrills me. I just really rather wouldn't be in that situation. But then again, at my age, it is likely that some of the eggs are bad - I mean, last time I put three embryos in and none of them were good. I am holding out hope that the lower response this time means higher quality per egg, but still, one has to be realistic. And I was upset last cycle that the clinic just chose wrongly when they made the decision as to which embryos to transfer. They transferred the fast growing embryos, even though they were grade 2's. I had some slow growing grade 1's that they didn't even tell me about, and which ultimately grew into blastocysts at day 5 (albeit only one of them was good enough to freeze, at least both of my grade 1's made it). So I'm worried about making any kind of selection of the embryos at this stage because the selection process is little more than a guess. I'd rather throw everything in, and see what sticks. I think. Decisions, decisions.

4 comments:

katty said...

That's good news on the fertilisation rate. I had ten mature eggs and only six survived ICSI. Four out of four is excellent.
I don't know what I'd do about three or four. I put back three because I am forty, but I am still apprehensive about it. I have no known fertility problems (apart form lack of a sexual partner) and I would be worried about affecting the health of a baby if three took.
But you have been trying to conceive for longer... and have tried IVF before.
What does you clinic advise?

Calliope said...

I say go for the 4. Make it a true daily double (or, um, daily quad...).

So glad that the wonderful Aunt will be your hand holder, cranial therapy giver, and driver. Very good that!

namaste said...

Transfer tomorrow? Wonderful! I'm too new at this to advise a number, although I am irritated on your behalf at what you found out about the ones that should have been transferred last time. Good luck my dear... we're all out here crossing our fingers for your little guys! xo

katty said...

Hello. I keep checking back to hear about the embryo transfer. Was it OK? Are you OK?