I drank my 18oz of water at 7:30 this morning and we arrived at the fertility center a little earlier than our 9:15 appointment time. They brought us in to the transfer room and had me put that oh so familiar paper sheet over my lower half. The nurse and embryologist came in once I was ready. They did a quick abdominal u/s to see if my bladder was full enough. (When the bladder is full enough it pushes against the uterus and puts the uterus in a position where they can go straight in with the catheter, hopefully avoiding them have to "steer" the catheter into place.) They determined it wasn't quite full enough so the nurse went off to get me more water.
The embryologist then took a few minutes to go over our embie situation. All 3 were still growing YAY! I asked for specifics on how they looked/grades and they were as follows:
- 9 cell - 2B
- 8 cell - 3C this one was graded c since it has 25% fragmentation
- 6 cell - 2B
Generally the faster they divide into more cells, the better they are. And as a rule A & Bs have the best chances, but that's not to say that an embryo with fragmentation, like our 8 cell, can't turn into a beautiful little baby. It sure can - so we've got some good possibilities in there. So she gave her recommendation that for my age, 2-3 embryos is the recommendation and that she would recommend 3 since freezing 1 is not a good option (it may not make it to day 6 to freeze or it may not survive the thaw if frozen.) DH & I had already discussed how many we would want to transfer so we were on board with the recommendation.
The nurse came back with my water, I drank it down, and a little bit later she, Dr V (the RE I adore who did my emergency surgery in August and managed to save my ovary) & the embryologist came back to check the bladder again. This time it was full and ready to go. Dr V again went through the recommendation and risks of transferring 3 to make sure we understood them and had DH & I sign off on the number of embryos being transferred. Then Dr V inserted the speculum & washed the cervix while the nurse held the u/s in place. When everything was ready, he asked the embryologist to go get the embryos.
At this point my heart was racing I was so excited. She came in with the embryos, verified 3 embryos & my name, and they were loaded into the catheter. We were able to watch the catheter go into my uterus and then just a little blob of white appeared to come out of the catheter - our 3 embabies were in that blob!! The catheter was removed and the embryologist took it back to check it under the microscope to make sure all embies made it out and none got stuck inside. Then she came back to tell us "all clear"! And with that, the speculum was removed and I snuggled under my blanket for a 30 minute rest on the table before heading home. Now I'm home and have started my couple days of bedrest.
Some people may think 3 embroys is a lot to transfer. It's actually not...for someone my age that is. If I were 24 years old for example, my RE would only transfer 1. That is their rule and unless I was that young with a bunch of previous IVF failures they would not do more than 1. So age has A LOT to do with it. If my embryos were of perfect quality, they may have recommended only transferring 2. But none of my embryos were perfect quality. So another factor to take into consideration. And to think octo-mom and her psycho doctor transferred 12 embryos! After she already had 6 kids, was a single mom, and unemployed. That's just fucking insane and completely irresponsible! So I hope people realize that most RE's have very, very strict rules about the number of embryos they will transfer back and base the recommendations on a number of factors.
So here are some questions I've answered for people recently:
- Is there a chance that we could end up with triplets? Yes, though it's a very small chance
- Is there a chance of having twins? Yes, 25 % chance of this I believe
- Could any of the embryos they transferred still divide and become identical twins? Yes, but again it's a very small chance of that happening
- Is there a chance of having a singleton? Yes
- Is there a chance that none will take? Yes. Transferring 2-3 offers us the best chance of having a singleton pregnancy but as we all know, you just can't accurately predict what will actually happen
So to wrap this up (since I've written a novel) next step on 10/28 is to have blood drawn to check my progesterone and estrogen levels. Then on 11/04 I go for the blood test to see if we're pregnant. Of course, I'm sure I'll POAS before then, you know I can't refrain from peeing on a stick!! But I'm going to really, really try to hold out as long as possible. :-)
Hooray!!! Keep on posting!!!
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