Don't Count Your Embryos Before They're Hatched

Yesterday was "The Big Day."  It seems I've had a few "The Big Day" days in my time with Eric, our first being our wedding day, the second being the egg retrieval and the third being the embryo transfer yesterday.

I felt a little anxious in the morning.  It wasn't that I was at all concerned about the procedure, but rather that this day had been four months in the making.

Upon getting to the clinic, Eric dropped me off so he could go find parking (the garage for the building is closed on weekends).  I went up to the fifth floor and waited.  One of the embryologists came out, called my name and then took be back to the room for the transfer.

It was a little room equipped with one of the most powerful air conditioning units which was actually labeled "IVF AVF" (I can only assume that it has some sort of a filter to sterilize the air while also cooling it significantly.

I then donned an ID bracelet and gown, popped a Valium and laid back on the table.

A few minutes later the ultrasound tech came in to check my bladder which needed to be full in order to best visualize my uterus.  Check.  My uterine lining looked great as well.

Doctor Ghadir arrived a few minutes.  He was in a jeans and a polo shirt.  Clearly he's only in the office on weekends for procedures since I had always seen him in shirt, tie and slacks on weekdays.  He then showed us pictures of our embryos and gave us the low down.

Two are grade B.  One is still in the morula phase and one is still at the 8-cell blastocyst phase.  The rest aren't developing well.

We started with 15 eggs of which seven fertilized which then increased to nine.  Then we were down to four or five grade A blastocysts and now we only had two good embryos and, let's face it, as Ghadir was running down the numbers my hopes were slowly being dashed.

There aren't any to freeze.  This is it.  If one doesn't take, we would have to go through everything again.  There are no second chances here.

His recommendation was to transfer the four I mention above.  The two that are a bit behind in development wouldn't be worth freezing and it is highly unlikely that all four would implant.

So that's what we did.

After it was done they slid me back on the table, recovered me with blankets, reclined the table and told me to rest for 30 minutes.

And when the clinic's staff left the room, I started to cry.  How is it possible that we went from so many possibilities to so few?  Eric tried to reassure me that there were two good embryos, but I couldn't hear him.  All I could think was that if this didn't work we'd have to start all over again.

The ultrasound tech came back in and said I could get dressed (I guess a half hour has passed) and I was still sobbing.  Eric asked if Dr. Ghadir was still there and she went to get him.

He did his best to assure me that I did everything I could.  I did everything right.  There were two good embryos and the other two may have just been a few hours behind in development.  He told me that some couples never even get to this phase.  Try not to worry, he said.  Try and stay positive.  It only takes one.

And so today, as I type this while laying on my side since I'm not to have the lap top actually on my lap (no one ever should because it's terrible for one's genitals, per Dr. Ghadir), I'm trying to stay positive.  I'm trying to remain hopeful.  I'm trying not to dwell on the ones that didn't develop.

If we end up having to (deciding to) do this all again, he said he'd likely increase the stimulant to try and get even more follicles to develop and he would also recommend genetic testing to determine if there is something else going on.

So the moral of the story is, don't count your embryos before they're hatched.  Otherwise, you might end up putting them all in one basket.